Reach Academy: Feltham Free School Application
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Reach Academy: Feltham Free School Application June 2011 for September 2012 opening 1 | P a g e If this application is successful, Reach Academy Feltham will work tirelessly to achieve our vision and make our mission and intended outcomes a reality Vision Our vision is that all children, regardless of background, benefit from a first class education and realise their full potential. Mission To transform the lives of all of our students by providing them with the skills, convictions and academic qualifications to graduate successfully from university and live happy and fulfilled lives. Intended – All students educated at the Academy will have the outcomes opportunity to attend and graduate from university; – All students achieve 3 A*-C grades at A-level; – All students will achieve the English Baccalaureate with A*-B grades at GCSE; – All students will complete Key Stage 3 with a level 7 in English, maths, science, French, geography and history; – All students will complete Key Stage 2 with a level 5 in English, maths and science; – All students will complete Key Stage 1 with a level 3 in English, maths and science; – All students will complete reception with a level 8 on the Foundation Stage Profile; – All students will develop a range of non-academic skills through a structured curriculum; and – All students will emerge with a clear vision for their future and a plan to achieve that vision. 2 | P a g e Reach Academy: Feltham Executive summary June 2011 3 | P a g e Educational vision The vision set out in this application is clearly focused on ensuring that the cycle of deprivation will be broken for the community that we serve and that all children will benefit from a first class education and realise their full potential. We intend to drive up standards in the Academy, setting highly ambitious goals for student progress and ultimate success, and will collaborate with neighbouring schools to ensure that outcomes locally improve as well. The Academy will offer genuine choice for parents. The Reach Academy: Feltham will be structured differently: being the only Academy locally to be all-through, taking students from Reception right through to Key Stage 5; the only secondary Academy to be small, with only 60 students in each year. The curriculum, ethos and expectations will also be different: focused on developing the knowledge and skills needed to access a top University, with a culture of no excuses. The Academy will provide both innovation and value for money. The innovation will come from the Academy’s structure, curriculum and its approach to teaching, with a focus on training new entrants to the profession. The intention is to open additional schools, creating a chain that shares best practices and raises standards. The Academy is setting highly ambitious goals for student outcomes and will provide this at the same per student cost as any other maintained Academy, avoiding the diseconomies of scale that affect larger schools. Our approach to evaluation will be sophisticated and innovative and will lead to a self-sustaining and self-improving Academy with a focus on students and on their ultimate success at its heart. Evaluation criteria – Educational vision Criteria Evidence Clearly focused vision The vision sets out clearly what we aim to achieve in terms of student outcomes and the features of the Academy that will make these outcomes possible, namely: All-through Small Revolutionised Curriculum Creative Leadership Transformational teaching No Excuses 4 | P a g e Driving up quality of provision and We have set highly ambitious student standards in own and local Schools outcomes with a headline goal that 100% of students have the opportunity to go to University and consequently, 100% achieve three good A levels and 100% achieve the English Baccalaureate at grade B or higher. We intend to collaborate with local schools from the start, sharing our curriculum approach, opening up our staff training and working closely with colleagues across Feltham. Greater parental choice The Academy will offer parents an education for their students not currently available anywhere in the borough. The Academy will be the only local Academy that is all-through, the only one that is small at secondary level, as well as offering a very different curriculum and am ethos grounded in high levels of achievement and no excuses for students achieving at high levels. The Academy will lead to greater parental choice. Greater innovation – range of providers and The Academy will foster innovation in its approaches structure – being all-through and small; in the approach to curriculum – backwards planning through all Key Stages from what students need to access a top University; in its approach to teaching – training new entrants to the profession with an innovation model borrowed from best practices across the globe. The intention is to open further schools, creating a chain that will ensure that best practices emerging from Reach Academy: Feltham in all the above areas can be brought to scale in other communities of high need. Value for money The Academy is setting highly ambitious goals for student outcomes and is seeking to work with a highly deprived community. We will achieve these outcomes at the same per student cost as any other maintained academy, leveraging synergies across the Academy and working in partnership with a range of institutions as laid out in our Capacity and Capability section. 5 | P a g e Self-sustaining and self-improving system At the heart of our work will be a highly relying far less on central government evolved approach to evaluation which will consider both the short and long-term, students’ academic outcomes and their broader life opportunities. The evaluation will drive Academy improvement and every adult in the Academy will be constantly seeking to learn and improve their practice. The Academy will run totally independently, while seeking to build a range of partnerships, and will identify considerable savings and opportunities for further innovation from 2014 when we will consider applying to open two further Schools (if in London or three nationally). Educational plan This plan sets out in detail how we will run the Academy to accomplish the ambitious vision set out in the previous section. The plan reflects the vision, experience and expertise of the whole of our team and our commitment to creating a great school for the young people of Feltham. Admissions This section of the plan sets out clearly and in detail our admissions criteria, an over- subscription policy and our tie-break policy. We will have an admissions number of 60 students in Reception once we are at steady state, with an addition 60 students joining in Year 7 until the first Reception class comes through in 2020 and students move automatically from Year 6 into Year 7. Our criteria meet all of the requirements of the Admissions Code. We include the process through which we will run admissions and an adjusted process for the Academy’s first year owing to circumstance and timing. Curriculum and organisation of learning We set out our approach to designing the curriculum: backwards designing it taking A grade criteria in highly regarded A levels and GCSE examinations as a starting point. The plan sets out how this curriculum will contribute to our students having the choice to go to a top university. Detailed progression plans for English and Maths give an indication of how learning will be organised across the Academy, with further detail of the other subjects that 6 | P a g e will make up a broad and balanced curriculum, and the subjects to be taught at Key Stage 4 and 5. The plan provides detail of how learning will be organised, notably the way assessment data will be used to inform and improve teaching and learning, and the innovative use of off-site learning and a Virtual Learning Environment to build skills and maximise learning time. We set out in detail how learning will be organised in each of the phases, with sample time-tables and curriculum maps for classes from Reception to Year 13. We also detail how the Academy day will be organised. Finally, this section sets out how we will support students will special educational needs and how we will aim to become to centre of best practice in language and literacy difficulties, while meeting the needs of all students with SEN. We set out both the systems for supporting individuals, along with the Academy-wide structures that will help us to meet the needs of all of our students through mainstream lessons as much as possible. Organisation of students We set out how students will be organised within year groups and classes, for both learning and pastoral support. We propose to use a tutor group model, with two form groups in each year, along with ‘families’, a vertical structure to connect small groups of students together to collaborate and share experiences. We detail how we will organise students for learning, noting that at times this will involve small group instruction and learning, at other times being whole year groups (60 students) or occasionally combining students across year groups to best meet learning objectives. It articulates our rationale for setting in some subjects and circumstances, and mixed ability teaching in others, along with the Academy’s flexible approaches to structuring learning in the classroom. Finally, we articulate our vision for student leadership and voice in the Academy, and the important role we intend students will play in the running of the Academy. Student development and achievement We set out our approach to evaluation and the targets to which we will be holding ourselves accountable.