The South Essex Academy Trust Curriculum Policy.

The Trust Curriculum Policy can be found here.

Our Trust Vision.

Our vision is to develop inclusive schools that promote and achieve excellence and that nurture the values, confidence and skills of pupils, staff and the community to meet the emerging opportunities of the 21st century.

At South Essex Academy Trust, all pupils are treated as individuals. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Personalised learning is our aim, giving the children the education they need and want.

  • Learning is active, hands on, engaging and fun.
  • We aim to inspire children to take a risk, challenge themselves, ask critical questions and develop life-long skills through first hand learning experiences.
  • We facilitate children to take control of their own learning, adapt their own challenges and develop into active, critical learners, in readiness for their onward journey.

Every learner is provided with the opportunity to access a rich, varied and challenging curriculum that inspires and enables every pupil to fulfil their potential and contribute positively to shape their own destiny and contribute to a better world. We teach all learners what it means to be a British citizen and the values that this entails.

  • Tolerance of other faiths;
  • Rule of the Law;
  • Respecting Institutions;
  • Combatting discrimination;
  • Individual Liberty;
  • Democracy.

These British Values are central to the learning experience we offer. We also aim to include our trust values across the curriculum, giving our pupils the opportunity to develop the skills we attach such great value to:

  • Collaboration;
  • Challenge;
  • Perseverance;
  • Innovation.

The SEAT Approach

The guidance issued by DfE with the updated National Curriculum, which came into force in September 2014 has emphasized the opportunities for schools to develop their own approaches to the school curriculum, and how it is organised and taught.

Across the trust, we recognise that there are differences in the contexts of the schools and communities which they serve.  As such, a trust wide curriculum that each school delivers is not appropriate: instead we take opportunities to share good practice and resources across the trust, but each school has the freedom to create its own curriculum intent and delivery model.  That way, each school has a curriculum that meets the needs of its pupils.

We also encourage all pupils to have a positive ‘Growth Mindset’ which ensures that they have a willingness to learn from mistakes and are willing to have a go, and they will be able to elaborate this positive attitude to learning. Through this, we encourage them to achieve a mastery of subject specific skills by;

    • Perseverance, particularly when they find a concept challenging;
    • Embracing challenges and innovating ways to problem solve;
    • Asking good questions so that they can become critical learners who problem solve and demonstrate deeper levels of understanding;
    • Showing resilience;
    • Evaluating and critiquing;
    • Taking learning risks, challenging themselves and others to be better learners;
    • Believe in themselves to achieve success;
    • Learn from others and the world around them;
    • Encourage their own independence;
    • Show determination to succeed;
    • Be enterprising and willing to take responsibility.

The curriculum has the following structure:

    • Half termly or in some instances termly cross curricular topics for all year groups from KS1 and KS2;
    • Each topic is led by a different curriculum area focus (for example: Science, History or Geography);
    • The combination of topics planned over a year will cover the statutory programme of study for the National Curriculum.

Enrichment.

We are committed to the broadest educational offering, and that means looking beyond the National Curriculum. A very successful enrichment programme that draws upon a wide range of skills is offered through school trips, visiting specialists and themed days and weeks.

Leadership.

The role of the Curriculum Leader is to provide a strategic lead and direction for the curriculum ensuring appropriate coverage and pupil progress. Support is given to subject leaders to ensure they are effective at raising standards in their subject. A team of Directors liaise with the curriculum leader and subject leaders to monitor the effectiveness of the subjects.

Each subject leader is responsible for: –

  • Keeping up to date with developments in their key area of learning at both national and local levels.
  • Reviewing the way in which subjects are taught in the school and plan for improvement linking to whole school single plan priorities.
  • Monitoring how the subjects are taught and ensuring that appropriate teaching strategies are used.
  • Leading sustainable improvement through supporting colleagues and others.
  • Reviewing curriculum plans for their key areas ensuring there is full coverage of the National curriculum and that progression is planned for.
  • Judging standards within their subjects so they indicate the achievements of children at each key stage and indicate and monitor expectations of attainment and progress.
  • Evaluating teaching and learning and assessment within their subjects.