Trust Curriculum Statement

Our Curriculum Aims

Our ambitious curriculum is founded on the unrelenting drive of the Trust’s community to educate, inspire and empower young people to be the next generation of leaders. We are dedicated to promoting the emotional, physical and social well-being of our diverse and multi-cultural population and aspire to be a centre of academic excellence for the education of young people.

We will teach and nurture resilience and strategies for sustaining a positive outlook so students can achieve outstanding results and thrive in a challenging future, both academically and in their personal lives.

As a Trust we are clear in our aim to instil in all young people a strong sense of belonging, identity and community: belonging to the Trust; belonging to the city of Manchester; belonging to Great Britain and, ultimately, belonging to a peaceful world.

We are fully committed to providing a broad, balanced, inspiring and challenging curriculum for all our students which equips them with high quality, relevant qualifications, skills, qualities and attributes to give them choices, a sense of ambition and able to make a positive contribution as a 21st century global citizen. We provide many rich opportunities for cultural engagement to develop an appreciation of the arts. We are committed to delivering an inclusive and diverse curriculum that draws on all aspects our different communities to celebrate culture, recognising that fostering creativity enables deeper levels of critical thinking, the ability to question, innovate and problem solve. We maintain a clear perspective on life beyond the Trust by working in successful partnership with our feeder primary schools, other secondary schools, and further and higher education providers and employers.

We place a strong emphasis on ensuring that our students are fully aware of careers and opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths so that they have the best opportunities to support Manchester’s ambition to be a top global city, whilst at the same time recognising that they may prefer to follow careers in a wide-range of other sectors.

Our Curriculum Values

Our Trust is framed by the guiding principles and values of the Co-operative Academies Trust. These are as follows:

Self-help – we support young people, parents, carers and staff to help themselves
Self-responsibility – we encourage young people, parents, carers and staff to take responsibility for, and answer to their actions
Democracy – we give our young people, parents, carers and staff a say in the way we run our schools
Equality – we believe that the voice of each individual should be heard
Equity – we work in a way that is fair and unbiased
Solidarity – we share interests and common purposes with our young people, parents, carers and staff, and with other schools in the communities we serve

We are committed to ensuring that our curriculum instils in young people the following ethical values:

Openness – we believe in being open with colleagues in our schools and beyond, young people and their families, sharing information and ideas to raise standards and life chances
Honesty – we act in a professional and respectful manner in our dealings with everyone
Social responsibility – we maximise our impact on the people in our communities while minimising our footprint on the world
Caring for Others – we treat everyone as we wish to be treated ourselves, understanding that children only have one childhood

Informed by the Cooperative Academies Trust’s values, our curriculum is clear in its mission to ensure that our young people are equipped with the following employability skills, attributes and qualities:

Self-management – readiness to accept responsibility, flexibility, resilience, self-starting, appropriate assertiveness, time management, readiness to improve own performance based on feedback/reflective learning
Team-working – respecting others, co-operating, negotiating/persuading, contributing to discussions, and awareness of interdependence with others
Business and customer awareness – basic understanding of the key drivers for business success – including the importance of innovation and taking calculated risks
Problem solving – analysing facts and situations and applying creative thinking to develop appropriate solutions
Communication and literacy – application of literacy, ability to produce clear, structured written work and oral literacy – including listening and questioning
Application of numeracy – manipulation of numbers, general mathematical awareness and its application in practical contexts (e.g. measuring, weighing, estimating and applying formulae)
Application of information technology – basic IT skills, including familiarity with word processing, spreadsheets, file management, use of internet search engines and are able to be developers of new of Information Technologies through such skills as coding and programming

In order that our students have embedded lifelong learning habits, we place a sharp focus on actively teaching study skills so that all students can be effective in their learning post 16 and post 18 years of age.

Inside the Classroom

Our Trust curriculum is coherently structured and sequenced to meet the needs of all students. We have designed a curriculum that takes in to account where our students come from, the experiences they bring with them and can share, whilst equally recognising the need to develop cultural capital to lead successful and happy lives. To this end, classroom delivery is supported by trips, visits, experiences and sequences of learning that enrich, excite and inspire.

Our emphasis on providing a broad and balanced curriculum includes ensuring students are able to make links across subject disciplines, enhancing learning and acquiring deeper knowledge.

We know that in order to provide a knowledge-rich curriculum, our Trust community must maintain an up-to-date knowledge of effective pedagogy and thinking. We offer a rich programme of continued professional development that includes an emphasis on evidence-based practice. We collaborate and value greatly working together to bring about the best possible academic and personal achievement for all.

Outside of the Timetabled Curriculum

Our school curriculum is not just those times spent within formal lessons but extends to a broad range of extra-curricular activities. All students have access to and are actively encouraged to take part in an extensive programme of activities, which seeks to extend their learning and widen their life experiences.

We proactively seek to use active partnerships to support learning wherever possible and encourage students to interact with speakers and visiting groups, industries and organisations to extend their communication skills and learning capacity.

Character Education and Leadership

Developing leadership skills is an important part of our work; our wide-ranging extra-curricular programme enables all students to pursue particular areas of interest, develop new skills, nurture leadership skills and learn. We provide opportunities to enable students to develop self-esteem and self-motivation and help students respect the rights of others. Leadership posts are offered across all areas of school life so that as many students as possible have the opportunity to develop the qualities required to lead others and work highly effectively as part of a team.

The Education and Leadership Trust holds firm the notion of social responsibility. To this end, students are guided to take advantage of volunteering schemes such as National Citizen Service (NCS). These opportunities provide students with interesting challenges and build skills for work and life.

Developing Physical and Mental Health

The Education and Leadership Trust is committed to creating and maintaining a safe learning environment where all students and adults feel safe, secure and valued, and where they know they will be listened to and taken seriously; our curriculum provision both inside and outside of the classroom reflects this. Our assessment practices support meta-cognitive processes to enable students to identify their areas of strength – celebrating their achievements – and areas for development, generating coherent and purposeful actions to address these.

Learning opportunities are framed in such a way that inquiring minds can take academic risks in a safe space. We seek to build students’ resilience through all learning experiences in a positive, safe and stable learning environment.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important. We promote physical activity strongly and students profit from a wide range of exciting sporting opportunities and we provide opportunities for all members of the Trust’s community to be physically active throughout and beyond the school day. We facilitate opportunities for our students to meet sports people to provide inspirational role models in the world of sport. The Education and Leadership Trust works to enable all members of our Trust’s community to understand the importance of physical activity through the provision of information and the development of appropriate attitudes and skills.

Ensuring students understand the importance of healthy eating habits is a key part of our work. Through curriculum content, extra-curricular programmes and our dining facilities, we ensure that members of the Trust’s community understand the importance of a healthy, balanced diet and lifestyle.

Developing Healthy Relationships

Developing healthy relationships is vital in order to be able to lead a happy, fulfilling, safe and successful life. Our Trust’s values place positive relationships at the heart of all we do. We will teach students the characteristics of healthy relationships, inclusive of family relationships, friendships and safety (including online). We will teach students about the society in which they are growing up, fostering respect for others and for difference. Our Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) will meet the needs of all students, whatever their developing sexuality or identity.

Our curriculum is committed to upholding our core values as outlined above for all members of our Trust’s community (see Trust PSHRE statement for further information).

Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance

The Gatsby Benchmarks are a framework of 8 guidelines that define the best careers provision in schools and colleges. Our careers programme is built around these benchmarks.

Through a rich programme of careers education, information, advice, guidance and work related learning activities, the Education and Leadership Trust develops the employability skills of young people, raises standards of achievement and encourages positive attitudes to lifelong learning. Opportunities are provided both within our various curriculum areas and outside of the classroom to develop enterprise skills as a key attribute of making a positive contribution to both public and private sectors, and to our students’ communities.

All students have the opportunity to take part in a formal work experience during Year 10 (and Year 12 in the case of WRHS).