Curriculum

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If you require further information regarding the curriculum please contact us: office@arrowvaleacademy.co.uk

Home > Learning  > Teaching > Curriculum

If you require further information regarding the curriculum please contact us: office@arrowvaleacademy.co.uk

Curriculum Rationale and Aims:

The curriculum ‘offer’ at Arrow Vale Academy reflects the ethos and values of the Central Region Schools Trust. We feel that maintaining the breadth of the curriculum, and the creative offer at both Key Stage Three and Key Stage Four is vital to afford the necessary educational and career opportunities for all and have hence resisted the pressure to reduce our students’ option choices.

Our curriculum is designed to achieve the following aims:

  • Promote knowledge and understanding
  • Develop essential subject specific, study, life and employability skills
  • Nurture attributes that will enhance the opportunity for success, well-being and community
  • Provide experiences beyond the school’s community and social demographic
  • Fulfil National Curriculum requirements
  • Provide equality of opportunity
  • Be progressive; provide balance, breadth, relevance, challenge and differentiation
  • Enable smooth transitions between key phases in education
  • Prepare students for post-16 study
  • To support career aspirations and to develop pathways into further/higher education and employment
  • Support the promotion of students’ character, which is inclusive of their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development

KASE

As a Multi-Academy Trust:

We seek to develop confident and creative learners who can thrive in a changing world.

In order to achieve this, we have worked collaboratively across the Trust (in co-design teams) and identified the Knowledge, Skills and Experiences which students are entitled to when attending a school in the Central Region Schools Trust family and the conditions in which our core Attributes will be nurtured.

Our curriculum is the realisation of our shared aspirations for our learners. We entrust our co-design teams to create the curriculum entitlement all our children deserve.

 

The framework to achieve this is set out below:

 Knowledge (what we want our pupils to know and understand):
 Our pupils are all entitled to:

  • Know, understand and have mastered the key concepts and questions related to, and arising from, each subject discipline (Expert)
  • Locate their experiences within a broader sense of society and understand the purpose and relevance of subject disciplines (Purposeful)
  • Opportunities for dialogue within subjects to build and use subject specific vocabulary (Fluent)
  • Know and understand their own learning journey with opportunities to explore progress and shape that journey (Self-Regulating)
  • Know, understand and contribute to the assessment process (Self-Directing)

 

 

 Attributes (what we want our pupils to be like)

All schools will create the conditions in which these can be nurtured
  • Our pupils are all entitled to:
  • Experience opportunities to take risks, doing so purposefully and with understanding (Risk-Tolerant)
  • Demonstrate the willingness to persist and overcome difficulties in order to build resilience (Resilient)
  • Reflect upon, and learn from, their own and others’ behaviours (Reflective)
  • Engage with, and develop appreciation of own communities (community spirited) and other communities including their lifestyles, cultures and values (Empathetic)

 

 

 Skills (what we want our pupils to be able to do)
 Our pupils are all entitled to:

  • Generate solutions to authentic problems and challenges with originality as part of a creative process (Problem-Solving)
  • Interact purposefully with others, including groups and teams, in a variety of different contexts (Collaborative)
  • Communicate effectively, frequently and purposefully through different channels including discussion, debate and questioning developing Oracy skills (Communicative)
  • Access texts in order to interpret/understand and write effectively for different purposes (Literate)
  • Engage in, understand and take responsibility for, their part in the learning process and, in addition contribute to the learning of others (Metacognitive)
  • Learn how to study, retain key information and perform confidently in public examinations (Pragmatic)

 

 

Experiences (what we want our pupils to have accessed and enjoyed)
Our pupils are all entitled to:

  • Enjoy, experience excitement and find significant value in, their school experience (Engaged & Enthused)
  • Take an active part in visits and trips which are beyond their own life experience or those of their school (Cosmopolitan)
  • Access meaningful and extended opportunities to appreciate what Higher Education and Employment can offer (Autonomous)
  • Be fully involved in an ambitious project which impacts on a wider audience than their peers (Champion)
  • Be stretched by a range of experiences which challenge their view of themselves and their future (Self-Aware)
  • Experience authentic responsibility in and around school (Responsible)

Curriculum Maps

Art    Design and Technology   Drama   Engineering   English
                 
Enterprise   Film Studies   Food Nutrition   Geography   Hair & Beauty
Health & Social Care   History   Information Technology   Learning for Life   Mathematics
MFL – French – Spanish   Music   Photography  

Science

   PE/Sport

The Timetable

The timetable is based on a two-week cycle and comprises sixty periods, with six periods per day. Each period lasts 50minutes. In addition, there is a 25minute Form Tutor period each morning which contributes to the delivery of our Learning for Life Programme.

Key Stage 3

Students are divided into two equal bands and students are set, based on ability, within each band for English, math & Science.

The curriculum in Year 9 is set to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum. Students study Mathematics, English, Science, MFL, History Geography, Art, Technology, Physical Education, ICT, Music and Drama. In addition to these students study Religious Education, Citizenship and P.S.H.E. through our Learning for Life Programme.

The number of periods allocated to each subject in Year 9 is shown in the table below:

 

Key Stage 4

Key Stage 4

Students are divided into two equal bands and students are set, based on ability, within each band for English, math & Science.

Each student will study for examinations in English Language, English Literature, math and Science. Students are then able to select four additional option subjects. These maybe further GCSEs (including triple Science), or alternatively, high quality vocational subjects which could provide a pathway to realistic and potentially rewarding career options.

As an Academy we would agree that for some students studying a humanity and a language (in addition to the core) is likely to provide a strong foundation for further study at A level and degree, and enable students to keep their options open for a wide range of degree subjects and career opportunities. The vast majority of RSA Academy Arrow Vale students will study either History, Geography or a language, or indeed a combination of these.

In addition to these examination subjects, students will also study Physical Education; and Religious Education, Citizenship and P.S.H.E. through our Learning for Life Programme.

We feel that decisions made about which courses to study should be for the students themselves to make in consultation with their parents and teachers. The decisions should consider whether the student is likely to succeed in the subject choices, and how far studying this set of GCSEs contributes positively to their future education and career ambitions.

Subjects are selected from the following typical offer:

  • Art
  • Catering
  • Drama
  • Engineering
  • Enterprise
  • Film Studies
  • French
  • Geography
  • Hair & Beauty
  • Health & Social Care
  • History
  • Hospitality
  • Information Technology
  • Music
  • Physical Education
  • Photography
  • Spanish
  • Sport
  • Triple Science

 

The number of periods allocated to each subject in Year 10/11 is shown in the table below:

 

Key Stage 5

Students in the Sixth Form will choose to study between three and four subjects at AS/A Level or equivalent. The number chosen will depend upon results achieved at Key Stage 4. Students can choose between an academic pathway (A Levels), a vocational pathway (equivalents), or a combination of the two. Subjects are selected from the following typical offer:

  • Applied Science
  • Art & Design: Fine Art
  • Art & Design: Photography
  • Biology
  • Business Studies
  • Food Science & Nutrition
  • Chemistry
  • Creative and Performing Arts
  • English Literature
  • French
  • Geography
  • Health & Social Care
  • History
  • Information Technology
  • Mathematics
  • Further Mathematics
  • Media Studies
  • Music
  • Physical Education
  • Physics
  • Product Design
  • Psychology
  • Spanish
  • Sport

 

The number of periods allocated to each option subject is typically ten.  The Sixth Form philosophy is directed towards the students’ development as mature, independent young adults, who will be able to organise themselves in order to succeed.  In order to facilitate this, in addition to their timetabled taught lessons, students are allocated ten timetabled, supervised independent study periods (a week) which form part of their individual study programme.

Curriculum Provision across all Key Stages is reviewed annually by the Senior Leader in charge of curriculum and Directors of Learning and Standards (Subject/Faculty Leads). Any proposed changes to the curriculum provision are proposed to the Senior Leadership Team.