Ark Victoria Academy

All pupils leave AVA confident, creative and collaborative individuals who have a thirst for curiosity. Our curriculum facilitates connections across subject disciplines, developing vocabulary, an appreciation of the Performing Arts and an accomplished level of both verbal and non-verbal communication. This leads to students becoming well-rounded and imaginative citizens equipped with the social and artistic skills required to thrive in the wider world. 

At Ark Victoria we have 6 curriculum pillars

Resilient readers: Reading is the cornerstone of Drama when it comes to performing from a text. It improves oracy and fluency. Shakespeare is introduced in Y8 (The Tempest) and continued in Y9 (Macbeth) to add complexity to the reading and comprehension skills of our learners. In Music the reading of scores and sheet Music is presented as an additional language to enable our learners to access a different type of text.  

High quality teaching: The teaching of practical subjects requires a practical approach. Therefore, performing arts teachers strive to make lessons and the curriculum creative and innovative. Teachers regularly utilise modelling of tasks and instant verbal feedback to allow the students to progress.  

Knowledge rich curriculum: Within our performing arts curriculum we focus on advanced terminology whether that be musical and theatrical. Students are expected to include this rich vocabulary within lessons and when assessing the work of others. Students are encouraged to use IOB (inside, outside, beyond) to decipher words, knowledge and meaning.

High ambition: We have high ambitions for the Performing Arts and have already begun collaborating with core subject to enhance the importance of our subjects. We want our Performing Arts students to be highly ambitious and our curriculum challenges students outside their comfort zone providing them with multiple opportunities to express themselves both inside the classroom and through extracurricular opportunities

Diverse and inclusive: Both Music and Drama (particularly mime work in Drama) are universal languages that are fully inclusive. In fact, data and evidence shows that a lot of our best performers and highest achieves come from SEND and ethnic minority groups. The nature of our practical curriculum and the absence of exercise books at KS2 and KS3 allow for both the more academic and the less academic students to achieve.

Strong Character and enrichment: Our curriculum and our all-through statement have a very strong focus on social, teamwork and creative skills in order to develop strong characters and leaders within our student body. Confidence and self-development is at the cornerstone of what our curriculum sets out to achieve.