Livingstone Academy Bournemouth (LAB) will be a school fit for the 21st century, where young people complete their formal education well prepared for success in the modern world and the challenges that lie ahead of them. 

‘Our vision is for an authentic education for the 21st century for children from the age of 4 to 18. We want all students to achieve high levels of success in a broad range of examinations at a variety of ages, whilst at the same time equipping them with the knowledge and skills required to play an active and successful role in today’s highly competitive, fast-changing world’.

The curriculum of Livingstone Academy Bournemouth aims to reflect the local community and the particular needs of its pupils. As a Free School, LAB does not have to teach the National Curriculum, but must teach a broad and balanced curriculum including English, Maths and Science as well as religious education. However, the curriculum structure and aims are driven by:

  • The Early Years curriculum requirements, and the National Curriculum in Key Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4.
  • Trust wide KS2 and KS3 curriculum development, the ‘No Limits: Education for success in the 21st century’.
  • Computational thinking, skills and literacy across all areas of the curriculum.
  • GCSE and A level syllabus requirements.
  • The EBacc GCSE academic programme at KS4.
  • The Aspirations Employability Diploma (Aspirations ED.) programme at Post-16 level.
  • The needs of local industry, in particular the creative digital sector.

The curriculum outline developed by the Livingstone Academy reflects the knowledge and skills, and the local social and employment context that pupils need in order to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. The curriculum will also help to powerfully address social disadvantage.

Young people will experience a very different type of education, centred on the development of knowledge and skills, delivered through a partnership between the Academy and the digital industry. There will be a creative and innovative approach to teaching and learning in order to develop the range of skills that many employers consider are currently lacking in school leavers. These include the range of ‘future skills’ developed by Aspirations Academies over recent years. These are highlighted below.

To mirror the real world, Livingstone Academy Bournemouth will deliver a significant amount of its curriculum in a transdisciplinary way, particularly in KS1, KS2 and KS3. The broad and balanced curriculum will be taught to all with high levels of literacy and numeracy delivered in the primary years, however, through the Applied Transdisciplinary Learning (ATL) curriculum sessions in KS1, KS2, and KS3, a range of subject areas will be taught together to mirror the way the real world works.

The key features of LAB’s educational provision:

  • A relevant, engaging and applied curriculum – with a strong focus on literacy, numeracy, science, computing and creativity.
  • The teaching of computing is delivered throughout the curriculum. Programming skills, the use of development software and Digital Literacy will be delivered through a broad and balanced curriculum.
  • An entrepreneurial mindset.
  • Creativity.
  • Problem-solving utilising contacts with the real world of creative and digital technologies.
  • Assessment and target-setting – each student will be tested regularly in literacy and numeracy in order to develop an individual education plan of challenge and support for each student. Regular assessment and target-setting will be seen as a positive and part of the culture of the Academy.
  • The Academy will start to develop strategies for the assessment of computational thinking, something which is extremely hard to do. This will most likely take the form of developing a way of measuring students’ understanding of ‘computing’ as a subject – it’s knowledge, application and skills associated with it. Because of newness a lot of research still being done in this area the Academy will keep abreast of developments and refine the provision accordingly.
  • High quality teaching and learning – all teachers will be expected to work towards being outstanding practitioners. Every teacher will need to be trained in the programming and development software used by students.
  • Engagement of the entire educational community who support the learning journey of the students.
  • High standards, high expectations, high aspirations – appearance, behaviour and attitudes would be of high quality at the academy.
  • Achievement – each Academy will work towards high levels of achievement and go beyond expectations.
  • Attainment of national qualifications, GCSE and A Levels, alongside Academy-developed Capability Licenses.
  • Aspirations culture – the three Guiding Principles and 8 Conditions will be alive in the culture.
Where next

National Curriculum Coverage

The links below set out our overviews for where we intend to cover the KS3 National Curriculum in Year 7 but we may need to…

National Curriculum Coverage

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