Teaching & Learning at Kingsley Academy

At Kingsley Academy, our curriculum aims to ensure that our students develop the knowledge, ambition and kindness to be successful at university and the world beyond.

Our Academic Curriculum:

Through our Academic curriculum, we aim to challenge our students to think critically, to foster independence; and to seek to develop their knowledge base in order to make strong progress in their learning. Our curriculum is a backward planned curriculum starting with the end points in mind. As a school, we have worked collaboratively with our Subject Leaders, our Directors of Faculty and our Classroom Teachers, to look at what students need to be able to do to be successful at A Level in each subject discipline and have then backwards planned the ideas, knowledge and concepts, to allow our students to study junior versions of these in Key Stage 4 and again in Key Stage 3, allowing our learners to incrementally build their knowledge and skills base throughout their learning journey at Kingsley Academy. Our curriculum is knowledge rich, but not just for the sake of educational trends, but because we understand that a strong knowledge base will act as a gateway to other subjects, topics and disciplines. However knowledge alone, is not enough and as such, we have endeavoured to ensure that our students also develop a love of reading and have ample opportunity to develop their reading and their writing skills.

Our Remarkable Lives Curriculum:

Through our Remarkable Lives curriculum, we aim to develop within our students a sense of kindness and ambition, as well as an acceptance of others whose beliefs and attitudes may be different from our own. Our approach is represented in our school logo, which represents the unity and diversity of our school community. Our pastoral curriculum is centred around equipping our students with the skills and knowledge and critical debate to allow them to be ambitious for their futures and to contribute in a purposeful and meaningful way in our community. Our Remarkable Lives curriculum is delivered through a combination of Deep Learning Days, Careers Education, University Visits, Enrichment opportunity and through our Tutor Time and Assembly programme. Our Tutor Programme explicitly teaches British values. explores key learning experiences outside of the classroom and prepares our students with the skills to be successful beyond our school doors. Our Remarkable Lives curriculum also ensures that our students have opportunities to explore a wealth of careers routes from University, to Apprenticeships and to the world of work.

In order to ensure that our curriculum can be delivered successfully, we have restructured our curriculum offer, rewritten our long-term plans and rewritten our schemes of learning to incorporate our curriculum principles. We have also reintroduced a number of subjects at KS3 and KS4 to ensure that our curriculum is broad and balanced; as well as moving towards a one week timetable and an extended school day. These changes have allowed a greater depth of experience within lesson time. We have also reduced split class to allow for greater consistency of provision and delivery.

At Kingsley, our key drivers for our academic curriculum implementation are the following:

• A broad and balanced curriculum, which allows a suitable amount of time for the consolidation of learning in core subjects such as English, Maths and Science as well as time to explore the range of EBACC subjects such as Modern Languages, Humanities and Computing, as well as the Creative and Performing Arts

• Local context – Every teacher to be a skilled teacher of EAL, with successful EAL strategies implemented in every lesson to allow our EAL learners to thrive and fully access the curriculum

• Highly planned, schemes of learning incorporating a knowledge rich base which is expanded upon within lesson, and supplemented through home learning tasks

• Grammar School Stream for Year 7 students from Sept 2023, which is cascaded throughout key stage 3, with dual language for our Grammar Stream students as well as a range of extracurricular subjects and programmes such as Brilliant Club and peripatetic lessons

• Our approach towards teaching and learning, incorporating our ‘Great 8’ for teaching, which include our ‘I do, We do, You do’ methodology to ensure that student acquire new learning within the lesson, have opportunity to see modelled application of this new learning by their teacher, and then have ample opportunity to practice this new learning with a clear set of success criteria and/or scaffolding where appropriate to allow learners to fully lead their own learning

English

• 6 periods of 55 minute lessons (This increases to 7 periods of 55 minutes lessons in Year 11)

Maths

• 6 periods of 55 minute lessons

Science

• 6 periods of 55 minute lessons

Options

• Identified students are placed on the EBACC pathway. These students are encouraged to choose French or Spanish, Computer Science and either Geography or History

• Students choose 4 options, with new arrival to the country students assessed for English proficiency and offered a EAL option within this, to consolidate their language skills

Subjects offered to students in KS4 as part of the options process include: Computer Science, ICT, French, Spanish, History, Geography, Citizenship, Sociology, Art, Photography, Design Technology, Sports, Business, Food Technology, Drama, Music and Child Development and Care.

• Deep Learning Days with a clear focus on Diversity, Inclusion, Careers and Empowerment

• Tutor time programme with explicit teaching of British Values and Citizenship topics such as Democracy in Action

• Kingsley Council is a forum for democracy in action, with students playing a leading role in shaping the student experience at the academy

• Assembly programme with thematic events and areas of celebration linked such as Lent, Black History Month, Democracy, LGBT month, Week of the Woman etc.

• Trips and visits with focus on links to the curriculum such as Theatre Trips for KS4, Science Museum with Y7 etc.

• Careers Events – Career Accelerator, Rock Assembly, Careers Expo at Heathrow

• Mentoring programmes – Coachbright, Brilliant Club and Urban Scholars

• University Visits – Every year group visit once a year to open minds to possibility of university as a next step

• Enrichment – Brentford Sports Coaching Programmes, Jack Petchey Speak Out, Shakespeare Schools Festival etc.