Our curriculum vision
Colton Hills Community School is an inner-city school with a diverse cohort that draws from a wide range of cultures, nationalities and identities. Our curriculum seeks to address the disadvantage that may exist within these different communities by giving our students access to everything that the world can offer.
Our school proudly holds the status of a School of Sanctuary, where students from across the local area – and across the globe, too – can come together to learn harmoniously regardless of their background.
Therefore, the intention of our curriculum is that we will offer our students the access to a broad and varied curriculum that seeks to equip them for modern life. We have designed our curriculum to ensure that students have every opportunity to gain worthwhile employment, attend a top university and have access to the social mobility that can change lives for themselves and their families.
One of the most pivotal aspects is making our students highly literate and numerate, ensuring that they have the fundamental skills necessary to take their place in society. Our skill makes literacy a central aspect of life at Colton Hills and addressing deficiencies in reading – whether due to prior achievement or being new to the language – is something that we attack with all of our energies.
We are aiming for world-class education. We, therefore, intend our curriculum to be knowledge-rich, deep in its explorations of topics, challenging, and with a distinctive, outward-looking, international feel. We want our students to make sure that our students encounter the best of what has been said and written throughout human history, and the chance to read these words is something that we hold dear in our curriculum.
We recognised the importance of grounding our curriculum in its wider contexts to enable us to fill gaps in our students’ knowledge. We are unapologetic in ensuring that our students have every opportunity to engage with as much powerful knowledge as anyone else in the country.
With these school contexts in mind, at Colton Hills we have built our curriculum around a series of thematically based Curricular Concepts that students will see in various subjects, enabling them to draw links and supporting them in making connections that might not always be apparent to them.
The intention of our curriculum at all stages is that we will teach all children at our school that:
Social Justice
Humanity is on an optimistic, positive journey of developing tolerance, enfranchisement and rights for all peoples, and we must all play our part in this.
Accessibility Plan
Principles
As a school, we are committed to providing premises that are suitable and sufficient for all educational purposes and give access to a broad and balanced curriculum for all students, irrespective of special need or disability. Colton Hills Community School’s Governing Body supports the principles and aims of the Local Authority and Department of Education advice on the Equality Act 2010 for improving access to schools and colleges.
This Plan underpins the LA’s Strategy for planning to improve access at a local level, by committing the school to a programme of actions, evaluation and review, which will improve access to the curriculum for students with special needs and disabilities.
This Plan operates along side the school’s SEN policy, is consistent with it in terms of principles and approaches to resourcing.
The school will actively seek to improve access to services in the ways set out below and will maintain an action plan which sets out the steps the school will take to achieve this. The action plan will be reviewed annually and updated to take account of improvements made, future resource availability and changing needs in the target areas;
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Ensure the curriculum is differentiated to meet the learning needs of students with SEN and disabilities and that target setting is effective and appropriate for these students. Make available the written material usually provided to all students, in an appropriately presented form where necessary, to SEN & disabled students, including pictorial and oral formats and also to ensure that classroom organisation is planned to maximise learning opportunities.
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Manage and improve the physical environment of the school buildings and grounds to meet the needs of a range of disabled students currently on roll and prospective students.
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To establish a culture of mutual trust and respect between all members of the Colton Hills community.
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To build a community that respects the celebration of achievement at all levels.
Equality Act 2010
The plan acknowledges the school’s legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 and aim to increase the extent to which pupils with disabilities can participate in the curriculum and improve its physical environment, allowing greater access to facilities, information and the services provided.