Ark Victoria Academy's Vision & Values

At Ark Victoria Academy we believe that all children can and will achieve success.

Our Vision

To be the number one school of choice in our community, improving the life chances of all those within our community.

Our mission 

We aspire to be an excellent school, ensuring that every pupil leaves our academy confident, secure, with the necessary skills, knowledge, and cultural capital to make informed choices about their future career; able to lead happy, healthy, fulfilled lives, contributing positively to society.

Our school is underpinned by the core Ark schools values:

Aim High, Be Brave, Be Kind, Keep Learning

 

Our very own Ark Victoria values:

Ambitious, Resilient, Kind

 

Our School Motto reflects our learning community: 

‘Growing, learning, succeeding together’

Ark Victoria Academy's Ethos

Our culture enables learning and teaching to flourish and the curriculum to be effectively delivered.

We adopt a warm/strict approach to establish calm, purpose and order. We achieve this through the consistency of expectations, showing care and compassion and using explicit signature strategies to secure positive behaviour. 

 

Our Curriculum Pillars are at the heart of our work to ensure we meet our vision and mission.

 

Our Curriculum Pillars

  • Resilient Readers: our school prioritises reading as we understand that pupils need to be effective readers in order to be successful in life; all pupils will be given strategies and support as well as opportunities to read confidently and fluently, to ensure that they are able to securely access the full curriculum and read at or above chronological reading age

 

  • High quality teaching: teachers are passionate subject experts and experts in age appropriate pedagogy with an excellent understanding of their subject, curriculum and the learning journey for pupils. Our teachers understand what excellence looks like for each subject, within each phase, and work together to ensure the transition from primary to secondary is secure, as a result of a shared language and approaches, as well as ensuring pupils reach the end goals

 

  • Knowledge rich curriculum: Our curriculum design enables pupils to make good progress in each subject discipline through the explicit teaching of core disciplinary concepts and knowledge. The  curriculum is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before. Knowledge is selected for its power in developing expertise in the subject discipline. Explicit teaching of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary, as well as strategies for learning vocabulary are built into our curriculum, which has clearly defined end points

 

  • High ambition: raising aspirations and outcomes: Teachers’ expectations are high for every child. Curriculum adaptation and judicious interventions ensure that all pupils make good progress. Teachers work hard to scaffold and ensure access to the full curriculum, rather than narrowing the offer. Pupils understand the opportunities that school, qualifications and a university education will afford and are provided with clear guidance about careers and pathways

 

  • Diverse and inclusive: our curriculum is consciously inclusive and seeks to support pupils of all backgrounds, experiences, and protected characteristics to access and enjoy our aspirational curricula. An authentic and truthful study of each subject celebrates and acknowledges that diverse bodies of people have generated and evolved the powerful knowledge in our subjects, and have made our disciplines what they are. We recognise the importance of developing and valuing our learners’ voice; our focus on oracy helps develop confidence, the ability to express views and build on the contributions of others.

 

  • Strong Character and enrichment: our curricula build pupils’ understanding of themselves as learners, as well as understanding the importance of values and virtues in helping to live a fulfilled and happy life. We make explicit connections between subjects and share ‘world wisdom’ to help build cultural capital, so that our learners can take part in the great conversations of humankind. Pupils develop their passions and interests through our student experience curriculum and our enrichment programme.