Our approach

Our curriculum intent

We recognise that pupils join our academy with a range of complex barriers and our curriculum aims at removing and/or overcoming them. We aim to do this with a tightly balanced curriculum of academic, vocational and social and emotional learning opportunities. Our curriculum is designed to fit our pupils' needs precisely through bespoke outcome focused approaches – click here for our curriculum overviews by subject. We recognise that gaps in a pupil’s academic successes as well as personal, social and emotional understanding need to be quickly addressed in order for pupils to achieve aspirational outcomes which aims to include re-integration back to mainstream provision. Click here for for our latest Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement.

Personal development runs throughout the spine of our curriculum with pupils receiving a wide range of daily opportunities through each subject. The Olive Way focuses on high-quality, hands-on experiences which focus on SMSC. We also provide outdoor educational activities at Key Stage 4 and Forest School at Key Stage 2 which focus on developing each pupil as a whole. Research shows that outdoor learning has a significantly positive impact on a pupil’s wellbeing and mental health, confidence and self-esteem, social skills and resilience. Our inclusive curriculum celebrates diversity and promotes tolerance and mutual respect of others.

Through a functional skills approach to teaching, we aim to provide our pupils with the skills and knowledge that will equip pupils for their next destinations. We recognise that pupils in alternative provision deserve the same chances of academic success as pupils in a mainstream provision in order to achieve a pupil’s dreams and goals. Therefore we offer a range of academic qualifications including GCSE’s, Functional Skills and BTEC awards.

In an ever changing and challenging world, many of our pupils face challenges in managing social environments and keeping their emotions in control. Our curriculum aims to develop a pupil’s own understanding of their social and emotional needs through the use of Zones of Regulation, ELSA support and a curriculum which looks to include learning to support this development through each lesson.

We have an assessment system that enables regular and accurate data gathering, analysing and monitoring. We understand the needs to address a puil’s gaps in prior knowledge and skills and we have a curriculum which enables us to adapt our teaching to address these.

Our aim is to prepare young people for a successful present and future after a challenging past.

Our curriculum

We have a core curriculum made up of English, maths and PSHE. We then aspire to offer as broad and rich of a curriculum as possible by offering The Olive Way curriculum which teaches and assess: SMSC, science, outdoor learning, careers, humanities at Key Stage 2 & 3 and cooking.

We offer a broad curriculum designed at removing and overcoming barriers through a range of subjects:

The Olive Way – The Olive Way is a holistic approach with the intention of developing the whole pupil. This subject focuses on teaching themed subjects through an EYFS approach, focusing on developing SMSC in pupils. This is further broken into: Being Olive, Being Social, Being Curious, Being Healthy and Being Creative.

English – Many of pupils who are of a similar chronological age work at very different academic levels, especially in English skills. English is structured into three parts: Reading, Writing and Speaking and Listening. We have designed a curriculum where the whole school is able to learn the same topic, at different levels in their own classes. We aim to include rich texts which focus on wider societal issues.

Maths – We understand that basic mathematical skills are an important part of adulthood. We have adopted a Functional Skills approach to learning for our pupils in maths to be able to focus on real-life, workplace maths knowledge. We want our pupils to learn the skills and knowledge that underpins the wider maths curriculum. We use the same approach in maths as in English which enables a class of learners at different levels to learn the same topic with their outcomes differentiated.

PSHE – click here for full information on our PSHE/RSE offer

Science – We help develop our pupils' understanding of the world through a planned and structured set of experimental learning experiences. We aim for our pupils to complete a GCSE alongside an Entry Level Certificate where appropriate.

Outdoor Learning - This sits at the heart of our curriculum due to the benefits in personal development that it exposes our pupils to. We will monitor pupils' progress in confidence, resilience, wellbeing and engagement through a range of adventurous activities and while in school.

Cooking – We believe that all pupils should leave our academy knowing how to cook healthy food independently. Our cooking curriculum exposes pupils to range of healthy recipes and cooking skills.

Careers – We use the Gatsby careers benchmarks to ensure that all pupils can identify their strengths, needs and future goals. We believe this supports pupil’s motivation for a positive outcome. Find out more about our careers provision.

Humanities – We use Humanities in KS2 & 3 to help support pupils learning skills as well as providing key skills and knowledge needed for the wider world. We have based our humanities curriculum around PSHE as well as geography, history and R.E. knowledge.

Vocational BTEC Level 1 Awards - For our KS4 pupils, we offer a wide range of Vocational BTEC Level 1 Awards in our curriculum. We aim to have the flexibility to offer pupils any courses which they believe would benefit their futures.