The national curriculum

English, maths and science are the foundation of our curriculum, with qualification levels tailored to each learner’s abilities and goals. These include functional skills pathways and GCSEs, ensuring accessibility and progression opportunities for all. Our core timetable has four sessions of maths, English and science each week. Literacy and numeracy are embedded across all other aspects of school to maximise opportunities for learning. Our curriculum focuses on supporting learners with the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy to address gaps in their education.

It also supports learners working at earlier age-related expectations to make progress, communicate with ease and achieve outcomes at the end of Key Stage 4 that support them accessing their next steps. Staff use relevant and interesting topics that engage students and encourage a love of learning. We use opportunities such as cooking, sports, music and real-life scenarios to consolidate maths and communication skills in a way that demonstrates their real-life application.

Learners are initially assessed using BKSB (Basic Key Skills Builder) to ensure clear starting points. This is vital to sequencing learning and is especially important in our school because many of our learners have significant gaps in prior learning due to missing extensive periods of schooling. We use one-to-one teaching and small class sizes to address these gaps in learning and, where necessary, provide precision teaching to create impactful interventions.