Wider Curriculum
At Leeds East Academy we provide our students with a broad and balanced curriculum. As part of this offer and to ensure we produced well rounded, valuable and knowledge rich citizens we need to ensure three key elements are interwoven into our everyday teaching. These are:
- Cultural Capital
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
- Careers and the World of Work
These three key features are integrated into each Curriculum’s Intent Statement, Schemes of Learning and therefore the lessons that will be taught.
Cultural Capital
Ofsted define Cultural Capital as the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, by introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.
As the belief is that an individual that is knowledgeable about a wide range of culture and is comfortable discussing its value and merits, and someone who has been provided with a vast array of experiences and access to skill development, will then be able to deploy appropriate knowledge in any given situation.
Ofsted understanding of this knowledge and cultural capital matches the understanding set out in the aims of the national curriculum.
- Promotes social mobility and success in our stratified society
- It gives a student power knowledge
- It helps them achieve goals, become successful, and rise up the social ladder without necessarily having wealth or financial capital
- Is having assets that give students the desire to aspire and achieve social mobility whatever their starting point
Cultural Capital Associated Offer 2023-24
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity is everything that makes people different from each other. This includes many different factors: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ability, age, religious belief, or political conviction.
Embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in the curriculum means creating a learning, teaching and assessment environments and experiences that proactively eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and foster good relations in a manner that values, preserves and responds to diversity. We believe in inclusive teaching through our curriculum.
- We believe the diversity of the UK enriches the educational experience for students.
- We are committed to ensuring that every student has the opportunity to reach their full potential.
- We seek not only to reflect UK society, but also to serve as a model for proactively engaging with difference, with respect, dignity, openness, and acceptance, recognising that diversity reflects the society in which we live and can be its greatest strength.
- We are committed to attracting and supporting students from diverse backgrounds and experiences, for example, based on race, gender, socio-economic status, age, sexual orientation and identity, religion, nationality, culture, ideas (including political perspectives), and methods within our curriculum.
Click here for Personal Development Case Study.
Careers and World of Work
Careers in the curriculum describes a range of interventions which allow students to encounter career learning as part of their everyday school curriculum. The Gatsby report identified eight benchmarks of good career guidance one of which, links curriculum learning to careers. The three main ways of delivering careers in the curriculum are:
1. Providing career learning as a topic in its own right
2. Incorporating career learning within each subject
3. Organising career learning through co-curricular activities (i.e., enrichment activities strongly connected to the formal curriculum)
Careers in the curriculum has two purposes:
- To promote students’ career learning, development and wellbeing
- To enhance students’ subject learning and attainment and their overall personal and social development
The aim of the inclusion of Careers and World of Work in the Curriculum is:
1. To promote personal effectiveness e.g., improving self-esteem, motivation, personal agency and self-efficacy beliefs
2. To ensure career readiness e.g., improving career exploration skills, understanding of occupations, decision-making and decidedness and preparedness for transition
3. To enhance educational outcomes e.g., improving attendance and raising educational outcomes