Our Aims, Vision and Ethos

Our Aims, Vision and Ethos

The school vision is to provide every student with a safe, supportive learning environment, one where all stakeholders within the community are valued and enabled to make positive contributions. Our aim is to ensure that all students develop into responsible independent members of society.

In order to realise this vision, we use the four Ofsted strands to guide us:

Quality of education

Teaching and Learning is at the heart of everything we do, staff deliver innovative and challenging lessons ensuring that all pupils make progress regardless of their starting point. Students are taught and encouraged to become independent and resilient learners who take responsibility for their own learning and outcomes.

A comprehensive staff development programme recognises the good and outstanding practice within the school and disseminates this throughout the teaching body. A tangible team ethos sees staff work across the curriculum to ensure that lessons are engaging and inspiring for the students.

All students are set targets based on prior attainment and teacher assessment. All students will receive a target grade for the end of each Key Stage. Parents, students and staff will be able to use this grade to ensure that each student reaches their full potential. This process is used in every subject to ensure student progress across the entire curriculum.

The quality of the leadership and management

By correctly managing the staff and curriculum within school, we aim to instil students with a love of learning; to prepare them for challenge but also for change; to teach them the value of questions as much as to value the answers and to understand that we are all learners. We are preparing students for life at a time when change will come ever faster, in an ever shrinking economy. Their ability to be flexible and respond to challenge and competition will become ever more important.

Behaviour and attitudes

We have high expectations of our students behaviours and attitudes to learning. We ensure that everybody in the school treats each other with the highest levels of respect. Staff, students are parents work together to ensure we work together to achieve our aim of ensuring all students make progress. Parents receive three communications per year with regard to progress and are invited to a Parent Consultation Day each year to discuss steps forward with subject teachers.

Personal development

We focus on empowering our students to succeed in all aspects of life. Our belief is that learning extends beyond the curriculum, we provide an extensive range of opportunities to develop students in all aspects of their character ensuring they are ready to make a positive contribution to society. Students will have acquired the knowledge to make positive choices about next steps in their education journey when the leave Orchards Academy.