L4L and Key Stage 3

These competencies are about improving students’ academic ability and ensuring they are learning both the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. For example, Social and Environmental competencies cover all of the Humanities subjects. Every lesson has an academic competency attached to it and every theme has a spread of academic competencies that students will study. Many of these are then revisited to assess students’ progress as we move through the years.

In addition to the Academic competencies, the Academy has developed a series of competencies about developing students as people. Through this we want to create students who: 

• are happy, feel their school and peers support them and are enthusiastic about school.
• are healthy, both mentally and physically.
• are successful, ambitious for themselves and others.
• have strong aspirations and feel that they are capable of achieving them.
• have a sense of decency, are respectful of others both within and outside the Academy.
• have a sense of pride in their Academy, who want to be involved in all aspects of Academy life.
• are self-motivated, inquisitive and capable of independent study.
• have a joy of learning and a wish to learn.
• believe they can improve their skills and abilities through practise and hard work.
• have strong and resilient coping mechanisms to deal with change.
• are willing to take risks.
• know how to stay safe outside of the Academy.

To facilitate this, we have three competency strands:

• Personal Learning competencies assess how well students are able to learn, set goals, revise, concentrate and understand the skills that it takes to be a great learner.
• Personal and Social competencies are about learning about yourself, staying safe and healthy eating but also the ability to be respectful and to work well with others.
• Professional Development is all about considering careers for the future and looks at the world of work, how to write a CV and be a confident interviewee.