Admissions Arrangements
Each academy in the trust has responsibility for their own admissions arrangements:
Careers Guidance and Enterprise
We will continue to develop our independent careers education, information, advice and guidance service and ensure that we support an increasing number of students to attain secure and meaningful further and higher education, training and apprenticeships. We will increasingly seek to develop partnerships with training providers and employers to secure placements for our students and seek to ensure that our students have the skills that they, and the country, require.
The development of the workplace skills will increasingly be supported by our curriculum and specific events (careers fairs, work experience, enterprise and employability skills etc.).
We will also foster deeper links with the Careers & Enterprise Company, the LEP and providers of applied and technical qualifications..
We will further develop careers education within our primaries to promote engagement with the community so that children are aware of the world of work and have high aspirations for their future.
To support this, we will promote the use of essential workplace skills: listening, communication, organisation, cooperation and investigation, and workplace qualities which are: respect, resilience, independence, confidence and creativity.
West Lakes Academy Careers Information and Development Plan
Curriculum
All children, at all levels, from Early Years through KS1 and KS2 at primary to KS3, KS4 and where appropriate KS5 at secondary, are entitled to, and will receive a broad and balanced curriculum where they will secure a solid foundation in knowledge, vocabulary and skills.
All WLMAT academies will enhance their literacy and numeracy provision to ensure that all children have the core knowledge that enables success within those subjects and enables them to access the remaining curriculum.
To ensure the delivery of knowledge at the highest standard possible, our curriculum will be specific, cumulative, well-rounded, preparatory and rigorous. That is:
- The specific content that children learn throughout the year will be clearly stated;
- Content will be cumulative ensuring that children develop both deep and broad understanding;
- Well-rounded. Not only are the arts, humanities, social and health sciences, sciences, technology and sports interesting and exciting subjects in their own right but we recognise that the reading comprehension, knowledge and vocabulary that these subjects convey enriches a child’s development;
- Preparatory, in that we will always ensure that not only is content delivered appropriate for the particular key stage but also is constantly seeking to prepare and encourage children to access further studies; and finally,
- Rigorous. We will teach complex and rigorous academic topics as we understand that complex topics, delivered in a carefully planned way, builds a deeper understanding and enables mastery to take place.
An effective knowledge-based curriculum relies on our leaders’ ability to promote excellence, cultivate challenge and encourage all to embrace the struggle inherent in learning.
Learning will never be too easy or its rewards will lose value and its comprehension will lack permanence.
Embracing educational change will ensure our curriculum prepares our students for life.
This is fundamental to our vision: we are relentless in trying to raising standards and provide equality of access to change lives through learning.
Social Mobility – EBACC and the wider curriculum
We will provide a broad and balanced education for any child to thrive and succeed in life, we understand and recognise that not all children access the English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) qualifications at KS4.
Therefore, all students will receive a core entitlement to English, English literature, mathematics, personal, social & health education, religious education, physical education, and science (increasingly the separate sciences of biology, chemistry and physics as opposed to combined science).
All students will also be entitled to a modern foreign language and/or computer science and/or a humanity-based subject. Social sciences, arts, physical education and technology qualifications are important subjects within the Trust and will be supported and maintained. These will be offered as options to support the broad curriculum offer but we will seek to increase, year-on-year, both the number who take the full EBacc and increase the percentage of students who obtain the pass grades (grade 5+) in all of these subjects.
These subjects will not be compulsory for all students but our guided pathway discussions will make sure that students and parents understand that this group of subjects enables students to have greater choice at further and higher education.
Similarly, and as a consequence of our increased focus on the EBacc, we will expect an increasing number of students to undertake courses from the suite of A Levels known as the Facilitating Subjects.
We are focused on driving up social mobility so we embrace the core subjects recognising that higher attainment in these areas will not only change your child’s life through learning but also this region’s/country’s future prosperity.
We have a duty to ensure that we give our students a love of learning and more importantly an ability to discover, absorb and apply knowledge because the country and world students work within is already one of continual innovation
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To be added
Term Dates and Timings of the Academy Day
All academies in the WLMAT share the same term dates:
Timings of the Academy Day: