We offer a broad curriculum that provides opportunities to learn creatively across all subjects. Learning is underpinned by the process of making, performing and discovering and is supported by these core principles:
- THINKING FOR MYSELF
- LEARNING TOGETHER
- EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY
- PLAY AND EXPERIMENTING
- PURPOSEFUL PRACTICE
We start from a belief that we are all naturally creative but that over time creativity gets ‘untaught’.
A focus on contextual learning, learning by doing, learning by making, supports the development of new neural pathways and the reinforcement of these into helpful habits and mastery. That is good, purposeful learning. Creativity is an essential ingredient to learning and living well and supports our core purpose through transformation; Creating Individuals, Making Futures.
English and Maths are recognised as essential for every individual. Our approach to these core subjects will be the same as our approach to the whole curriculum. This is evidence- based, monitors progression for success, utilises creativity and the arts, and is purposeful. For example, in any written task it is essential that children have had a personal experience, have appropriate skills, a clear context for learning and an identified audience.
The importance of creativity in all subjects is demonstrated in real life whether you are a designer, a scientist or running your own business. Studying creatively and using the vehicle of the creative arts is not a soft or easy option. It’s about rigour and perseverance, finding new ways, communication and discovery, confidence and performance, learning from failures and using those failures to become even better.
Our assessment processes will be focused on the single purpose of improving outcomes for young people. This means we will have assessment systems embedded into our curriculum experience over a range of areas reflecting the core purpose of our school and our specialism in creativity and the arts.
Our staff will have specialism and talents that are utilised across the entire school. Our curriculum offer will be enhanced by our mutual, purposeful partnerships with our sponsor Plymouth College of Art and a broad range of organisations and countless individual practitioners.
We consider learning to extend beyond the walls of our school, and fully utilise the rich diversity of learning opportunities present in and around the city of Plymouth and from within our local community.