This year, the faculty has focussed on developing the extended writing skills of year 9 students in order to enable them to be able to express themselves without the need for tight scaffolds. There have been several opportunities this year for year 9 students to use a homework task to develop and plan ideas for a longer piece of written work in the classroom. The feedback given by the teacher and from opportunities to share planning with other students has then enabled our year 9 students to engage with an extended written piece of purple pen to really demonstrate their higher order knowledge and understanding skills in a range of different pieces of work.

Boost to students’ digital skills

We have been strengthening and developing our students digital skills by embedding Microsoft Teams and associated technologies to give them increased confidence, skills and processes in using computers.  At year 8, we have also introduced a basic skills curriculum to address the weaknesses that some students have through a heavy increase in exposure to tablets and smartphones, rather than desktop computing.  These skills will have an increased impact on their ability to use computer software across the curriculum and, later on, when they enter the workplace.  The assignment below shows an excellent piece of Year 9 work, where the students have been learning how to program the microbit to learn coding skills; the assignment was submitted in Microsoft Teams, assessed and then returned to the student for revision, enabling high levels of progress in their learning.

In maths we have continued our use of SPARX online learning platform, using this for homework for years 9,10 and 11. Once the homework has been completed, students then use time in lessons to work on individual areas of need taken from the homework, and for those who would benefit from more challenging homework there are personalised challenge questions. We have also embedded this into our assessment cycle, students are given the Sparx codes before an assessment to help their independent learning outside of lessons in preparation for an assessment, and the after the assessment students go to a computer room, and then work on which ever areas they struggled on on the assessment, hence completing the assessment cycle, this is proving to have a big impact in pupils progress and comfidence.

Since September, students at the National academy have completed 4264 hours of learning on sparx and answered 192, 343 questions correctly. Our top 3 students so far this year are Hannah G, Niamh O, and Oliver S. Year 9 has the highest percentage of students with 100%.

One of the most rewarding aspects of being part of young people’s education is what happens beyond the confines of a classroom. Seeing students conquer their fear of heights at Hagg Farm or being genuinely in awe of the effort’s soldiers

In Social Sciences, a large part of our curriculum is intended to give our students the opportunity to develop analytical and evaluative skills.  In Religious Studies this is seen in both key stage three and key stage 4 though debate style respo

Nestled within the corridors of the National Church of England Academy lies a vibrant hub of creativity and innovation – the Art, Design, and Technology department. Here, students are not just taught skills and knowledge; they are encouraged to explore, create, and push the boundaries of their imagination.

The languages faculty is continuing to develop the curriculums in both MFL and English through supplementing the curriculum in the classrooms with a range of enrichment activities such as a key stage four Jekyll and Hyde theatre trip, key stage theatre trips to The Wind in the Willows and MFL have held a German bake off which was a tasty treat for all involved and the year 10s have just returned from a successful trip to Boppard, Germany.  We are also planning more enrichment into the 2024 curriculum with trips to Shrek, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Cinderella and a German Markets excursion at Christmas which will be a festive treat for all involved.

As we regularly review our curriculums to ensure positive outcomes for our young people we have been able to enhance the assessment and feedback given to students using the interactive boards in our department to live model and mark with the visualiser increasing the students’ engagement in the learning process and celebrating the fantastic work we see in the classroom and to share this live during the lesson is very powerful and motivating for the students.

We have reviewed our curriculums to ensure the balance of traditional literature and modern texts are engaging and challenging. We use the traditional text as a window to reflect a society in the past and use big questions to engage in the important discussions that we ask about how society was, why it was this way and what do we learn from these texts. We then supplement this traditional text with a number of modern articles, narratives and poems and seek to look at how texts are a window into our current world and we reflect upon the changes and how these changes have impacted on individuals and societies. Students have engaged positively with the new texts and continue to show high levels of engagement.

In MFL, we have explored how the curriculums can explore the wider contexts of the language we are learning and consider the festivals and traditions that are celebrated and this has led to some amazing creative work and has been added depth to the current curriculums being taught. We have continued to use Conti as the framework for structuring the curriculum and student engagement and enthusiasm for German and French is continuing to grow in the academy and this is a real positive area of growth.

Get in touch…

If you have any questions about the languages curriculum, ways for students and parents to get involved, or would like to ask about extra-curricular opportunities, please drop Miss Hunt, our faculty head, an email at: www.chunt@nationalacademy.org.uk