Curriculum
Our vision is to deliver an authentic education that is engaging and deepens understanding, and results in high levels of achievement as well as preparing pupils/students for an ever changing world.
The aim of our curriculum is to ensure that all students are inspired with a passion for learning and achieve high levels of academic success in a broad range of subjects whilst at the same time equipping them with the knowledge and skills required to play an active and successful role in today’s highly competitive and ever-changing world.
The values that underpin the curriculum delivered at Magna Academy are to provide an authentic and immersive education for the world today with core knowledge as the critical foundation so that all students can build upon their understanding and excel as they move throughout their time with us. To this end, the curriculum allows for the development of the knowledge, skills and qualifications required for progression to the next stage of the journey – be that choosing options subjects, equipping students for the rigour of Sixth Form study, or the transition into higher education.
Additionally, all Magna Academy students learn in a challenging, engaging and supportive environment through a well-thought-out curriculum, which encourages creativity, celebrates diversity and utilises the knowledge, skills and cultural experiences of the local community.
At Magna Academy, all staff think about curriculum at three levels. The first is the intended curriculum – what we intend students to learn. Subject specialists at Magna set out this detail meticulously, drawing on academic knowledge, the national curriculum and experience of what is necessary to flourish in their discipline. The second level is the implemented curriculum; the resources teachers use to deliver the curriculum.
An example of these are the knowledge organisers and bespoke booklets that teachers write for each subject and year group. Finally, we emphasise the importance of the enacted curriculum, where our highly skilled teachers bring all of this knowledge to life in a way that will be meaningful and exciting for the students that they know well.
Magna Academy has considered the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required to achieve academic excellence in each subject. Deep learning must be a goal of the curriculum, with students able to retain and transfer learning.
For this to occur adequate time on topics must be mapped out to achieve genuine accumulation of learning. We plan for mastery over time, providing repetition and revision for deeper understanding, so knowledge is retained and not forgotten. Our students need an explanation of why they are covering this topic now, how it connects with what they have done before and how it connects with what will come later.
The curriculum at Magna Academy is grounded in the strongest evidence about how students learn and retain knowledge in the long term – focusing in particular on research from cognitive science. Cognitive science suggests that students ought to learn the concepts that come up repeatedly – the unifying ideas of each discipline.
We are confident that this approach offers a truly ambitious, broad and balanced curriculum to all students. We believe that this will inspire students to go on and excel in their chosen field, providing the widest range of opportunities for their future.
WHAT IS ‘NO LIMITS’?
Our unique No Limits curriculum is ambitious, enriching, broad and balanced. Designed to go beyond the traditional curriculum it combines the acquisition of knowledge with the development of power skills. Our students have regular opportunities to apply their learning and demonstrate their power skills in real world contexts. Engaging in learning in this way deepens understanding, and results in high levels of achievement as well as preparing pupils/students for an ever changing world.
THE NO LIMITS CURRICULUM
Students are taught the full National Curriculum, and this is enhanced through several different learning approaches. These are designed to challenge and engage students allowing them to acquire and apply knowledge in single discipline subjects as well as through Applied Learning.
APPLIED LEARNING
Applied learning is the real-world application of knowledge and power skills that includes relevant, practical experiences. This can be through:
- Problem-Based Learning: Students work on real-world problems, developing solutions through research and critical thinking.
- Experiential Learning: Students participate in activities like experiments, simulations, and fieldwork.
- Project-Based Learning: Students undertake projects that require applying their knowledge and skills to produce a tangible outcome.
- Work-Based Learning: students gain experience in a real-world professional setting.
- Service Learning: Combines community service with academic learning, emphasising civic responsibility and reflection.
WHY IS APPLIED LEARNING IMPORTANT TO US?
- Ensures our curriculum remains relevant and evolving
- Enables students to engage with people, place and processes
- Enhances understanding and retention by deepening learning (relevant/engaging)
- Can be differentiated easily
- Makes learning more purposeful
THE CREATOR SPACE
The ‘No Limits’ Curriculum aims to give all students the opportunity to thrive, to become complex problem solvers and to be highly effective communicators. The intention behind our Creator Space is for students to work collaboratively using creative solutions to explore areas across the curriculum from science, technology, engineering and maths to art, design and English. One of the goals of the Creator Space is to instill the creator mindset in students through creative experiences while simultaneously building power skills. The Creator Space is for artists and designers of the future to help immerse, involve and inspire them.
The expectation is for each academy to follow the ‘No Limits’ curriculum outline and philosophy whilst also putting its own personal stamp on their own contextual curriculum. The shared, collective curriculum enables sufficient commonality of subjects, topics and assignments to enable Trust moderation and the raising of standards.
What are Power Skills?
As part of Aspirations Academies Trust, we have used extensive research undertaken by the Hewlett Packard Foundation – and developed further by the Deeper Learning Foundation – as our starting point for determining what robust learning progressions for skill development looks like.
The five Power Skill areas are:
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Critical Thinking
- Complex Problem Solving
- Character (Learning how to Learn)
Every skill is broken down into several strands; each of which has a long-term transfer goal. Staff at Magna Academy collaboratively developed and defined learning progressions, which provide observable performance indicators as to what progressive development toward each long-term transfer goal looks like.
