Curriculum Intent

Every young person admitted to BAPA has been on a unique educational journey. We are committed to returning our students to mainstream school, moving them onto specialist provision, or positively transitioning them to post 16 education, employment or training.

Students are with us for varying amounts of time; some individuals will have a very short time on our roll, while others will remain with us until the end of Y11. Because of this, our curriculum offer is flexible, personalised, and designed to allow students to progress to the next stage of their educational journey, by accessing our academic pathways.

Our over-arching aim is to provide a curriculum that enables each young person to shine, by allowing all learners to gain knowledge, skills and attitudes that support progress in education and society and improve their life chances. The curriculum at BAPA is designed to:

For Short and Medium Term Placements

• Engage all students in learning.
• Enable all students to make progress from their individual starting points, and to have successes in learning.
• Focus on developing student’s social, emotional and mental health.
• Focus on depth before breadth: having a strong curriculum focus on the facilitating subjects of English and Mathematics.
• Allow students to explore subjects beyond the core curriculum that reflect the local context and prepares students to be successful within society.
• Support all students to make healthy and safe choices.
• Support all students to develop the skills, behaviours and attitudes that will enable them to reintegrate to, and be successful in, the next phase of their education.

For Long Term KS4 Placements

• Engage all students in learning.
• Enable all students to make progress from their individual starting points, and to have successes in learning.
• Focus on developing student’s social, emotional and mental health.
• Focus on depth before breadth; having a strong curriculum focus on the facilitating subjects of English and Mathematics.
• Support all students to make healthy and safe choices.
• Support students to make positive decisions about their future and next steps.
• Ensure that all Y11 students leave with at least one qualification, no matter when they join us.
• Ensure that the majority of our Y11 students achieve a qualification in English and Mathematics.
• Ensure that all Y11 students who are not returning to mainstream education have access to a range of qualifications at the right level and grade to reflect their ability.

Students, who will benefit from a vocational curriculum offer in KS4, have access to external providers to benefit from the specialised vocational offers that they make.

For some students, attendance at the centres proves challenging. To allow for access to education and continuity, home tuition supports development in confidence and establishes routines around learning and education.  

The planning and delivery of our curriculum is underpinned by a commitment to the promotion of equality, diversity and modern British values.

Implementation

In any one classroom at BAPA, we will have young people from state-maintained schools and academies, who have experienced very different curriculums before joining us, and who may return or move on to another setting with a different curriculum. We have mixed-age classes of young people, many of whom are not working at age-related expectations. It is therefore crucially important that our curriculum is flexible enough to enable us to meet such a wide range of needs.

Each student who enters BAPA is assessed on arrival and will access an offer to meet need. Students complete baseline assessments in literacy, numeracy and attitudes, which allow staff to develop a personalised curriculum that supports individual need, including SEND, and closes the gap between their starting point and age related expectations. The curriculum allows students to move at their own pace, whatever their starting point, to support individual learning and progress.

In implementing the curriculum, learning is focused on key concepts, presenting information clearly and engaging in appropriate discussion. In delivering this, staff check student understanding and embed key concepts.

The curriculum supports key knowledge being retained to memory. This is sequenced, so that knew knowledge and skills build on prior knowledge and learning. Assessment is used to support informed teaching and to help students to embed learning and understanding.

Curriculum Content

Short and Medium Term Placements

Long Term KS4 Placements

• English and Literacy
• Maths and Numeracy
• Science
• PSHE including SRE and Careers Education
• Practical subjects

The curriculum will be designed so that all students are able to access the following GCSE courses if it is appropriate for them:

• English Language GCSE
• Mathematics GCSE

The following qualifications will also be available for students who are not yet ready for a GCSE pathway:

• Entry level and Functional skills in English and Mathematics

External providers will develop their own curriculum models that ensure all KS4 students also experience offers that are in line with their interests, career aspirations and progression.

Impact

The primary measure of the impact of our curriculum will be student attainment. Our assessment policy lays out the detail of how we assess students.

We will further evaluate the impact of our curriculum in the following ways:

Aim

Impact Measure

Engage all students in learning.

• Observations of learning
• Student voice
• Attendance

Enable all students to make progress from their individual starting points, and to have successes in learning.

• Analysis of student progress data
• Qualitative data on student progress (e.g. through work scrutiny and end of unit review sheets)

Support all students to make healthy and safe choices.

• Quality assurance of PSHE curriculum
• Observations of learning in PSHE lessons
• Student voice
• Analysis of behaviour data

Focus on depth before breadth: having a strong curriculum focus on the facilitating subjects of literacy and numeracy/English and Mathematics.

• Analysis of student progress data in literacy and numeracy/Maths and English
• Analysis of progress in reading spelling and comprehension

Support all students to develop the skills, behaviours and attitudes that will enable them to reintegrate to, and be successful in, a mainstream school.

• Number of students successfully reintegrated to the next phase of their education
• Analysis of PASS scores

Support students to make positive decisions about their future and next steps.

• Number of students who have accessed  Connexions careers advice
• Number of students with a positive destination to go to from Y11
• Number of students still in that positive destination 6 months later
• Achievement of the Gatsby Careers Quality Mark

Ensure that all Y11 students leave with at least one qualification, no matter when they join us.

• Number of Y11 students who leave with one qualification

Ensure that the majority of our Y11 students achieve a qualification in English and Mathematics.

• Number of Y11 students who leave with a qualification in English and Mathematics.

Ensure that all Y11 students who are not returning to mainstream education have access to a range of qualifications at the right level and grade to reflect their ability.

• Quality assurance of GCSE curriculum being followed by all providers
• Observations of learning in GCSE lessons
• Number of KS4 students following a GCSE pathway
• Quality assurance of appropriateness of curriculum offer and qualifications available for KS4 students not following a GCSE curriculum
• Quality assurance of additional subjects on offer in each provision
• Number of students who leave with qualifications