The Vision behind Prince William School’s Curriculum Learning for Life

The vision for Prince William School is to raise the aspirations of our students by nurturing a passion for learning, enriching their learning experiences, providing the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in adult life, and enabling them to secure outcomes which exceed their expectations.

We want to create confident, resilient and well-rounded adults who have an aspiration for self-improvement and are able to compete equally with their peers in a world beyond school life. We aim to provide an education which prepares students for the adult world of work not only by enabling them to attain qualifications which allow them to follow their career aspirations successfully, but which also equips them with an aptitude for life-long learning. We recognise that they will need to be able to continue to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge throughout their working lives. Additionally, we aim to foster a love of learning that will remain with the students for the rest of their lives. Learning is for life: life-changing, life-enriching, and life-long.

We aim to ensure that the curriculum at Prince William School is accessible to all, but also offers challenge and enrichment. Our curriculum offer in KS4 and KS5 is broad, meeting the needs of students of a variety of abilities and career aspirations. Within this locality, we are the only provider to offer Y7 – 13 education which includes a mixture of level 1 and level 2 courses at KS4 and a blend of A levels and BTECs at KS5. At KS3 we deliver a wide range of subjects throughout years 7 – 9, following the National Curriculum, to ensure students have a rich, broad and balanced education.

We commit supporting the development of key Employability Skills across all subjects; skills which are transferrable and are essential to success:

Employability skills

By combining our ambitious curriculum offer with our determination to support all students to develop these skills to the best of their abilities, we anticipate all our students will

• enjoy an excellent level of well-being
• develop a passion for lifelong learning
• develop a sense of community responsibility
• attain the best qualifications they can
• develop into independent learners who are robust and resilient in their outlook on life.

The Rational behind the Courses and Curriculum Offer

Labour Market Employment Routes and the Curriculum

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills produced a “Working Futures” report which predicts that the majority of the future net increases of jobs up to 2024 within the SEMLEP area (South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership) will require attainment/training/skills acquisition at Levels 2,3 and 6. Over 65% of jobs will require a Level 4 qualification or over.

Within the SEMLEP area their model projects that there will be substantial jobs expansion demand over the period to 2024 particularly in the higher qualified jobs such as managers, business, science, engineering as well as caring professions.

The top 10 growing sectors in this area are predicted to be:

• Caring personal service occupations
• Elementary administrative and service occupations
• Corporate managers and directors
• Business and public service associate professionals
• Administration occupation
• Business, media and public service professionals
• Science, research, engineering and technology professionals
• Sales occupation
• Transport and mobile machine drivers and operatives
• Health professionals.

Within the East Midlands the top three sectors by turnover growth and employment growth are

• Property and Construction
• Business Support Services
• Retail and Leisure.

At Prince William we do not have the facilities to offer courses involving construction or transport, but we do aim to offer courses relevant to all the other employment sectors listed above.

Student Voice

We have spoken to our students in KS3 and KS4 about the curriculum offer at KS4 and KS5. Students were given opportunities to comment on the curriculum offer and suggest courses that may have some benefit to their futures.

Students asked for courses in Child Care, Health & Social Care, and Criminology which are now offered. They also asked for more BTEC courses to be offered at KS5 to complement the A level offer and enable them to blend BTEC and A level qualifications if they wanted to, and some wanted some Level 2 course to be available.

As a result of this research into the national and local labour market as well as our own students’ views and career aspirations, we have devised our current offer, and continue to develop it each year.

The Curriculum Offer at Prince William School

The curriculum at Prince William School supports the education and employment routes our students need by providing a curriculum offer from KS3 through to KS5 with a variety of pathways. Because we have consulted our students and investigated the labour market, we feel that our curriculum supports our students to develop the key skills and foundations for learning that they need whilst also providing an inclusive but exciting variety of qualifications. This, combined with our SMSC, CEIAG, and other opportunities such as work experience, provides students with a complete and balanced education.

KS5 Curriculum

All subjects are allocated 500 minutes per fortnight in year 12 and 600 minutes per fortnight in year 13. Additionally in year 12, students receive 100 minutes of Skills for Life (including careers) a programme which is supported by tutor lessons in both year 12 and year 13.

KS4 Curriculum

KS4 Curriculum All students study English, Maths, Science, Core PE, and Skills for Life (including Careers) at KS4. Additionally, they take 4 option subjects. All students are expected to take one of: Computer Science, French, Geography, History, Spanish, or an ASDAN course. They then chose 3 further subject options.

The allocation of teaching time per fortnight at KS4 is as follows:

KS3 Curriculum

All students follow a broad and balanced curriculum throughout their KS3 programmes of study. The curriculum offered at KS3 builds upon the knowledge, understanding and skills taught at primary school and prepares them for a range of courses at KS4.

The timetable is based on a 30-period 2-week cycle with each period being 100-minutes in length. Allocation of teaching time for KS3 subjects per fortnight is:

Tutor lessons

It is recognised that it is important for the school day to start with purposeful, structured time which establishes the expectation of students working hard throughout the school day. Tutor lessons, therefore, are designed to complement the curriculum by providing structured work which provides opportunities to explore social and moral issues, nurture a broader cultural and spiritual understanding, and develop character skills.

All year groups will have one assembly and one LORIC session per week in their tutor time. The LORIC resources aim to develop the Character Skills of Leadership, Organisation, Resilience, Initiative, & Communication, but will also incorporate health and wellbeing, careers & future options, e-safety, speaking and listening skills and the importance of community cohesion. In Y7 – 10 the three other session each week will be Newsround (website), Form time ideas.com (website), and silent reading/admin. In Y11 the three other sessions are focussed on the students’ weakest subject, and in Y12 &13 the three other sessions are used for work and mentoring.