All Academies have a specialism in one or more subject areas. The first waves of Academies were not required to teach to the National Curriculum - their curriculum had to be broad and balanced and they were required to teach the core subjects and carry out Key Stage 3 (KS3) assessments in English, maths and science.
The National Curriculum has now been made more flexible to accommodate the kind of innovation that Academies have enjoyed. Since the summer of 2007, all newly signed Academy funding agreements require Academies to follow the National Curriculum programmes of study in the core subjects of English, maths, science and ICT. They will retain flexibility beyond this, for example, to address the needs of particularly low achieving pupils. As Academies drive up performance, the expectation is that they will offer the full national curriculum to the large majority of pupils.
The year after each Academy opens, Ofsted inspect and report on progress. Ofsted send a letter to the Academy with a result of their monitoring visit which is published on their website. In the third year after opening, there is a full section 5 Ofsted inspection. Ofsted inspections of Academies are carried out on the same basis as for all other state funded schools. If the Department and Ofsted are satisfied with the Academy’s progress, the monitoring regime will be reduced to a much more light-touch approach, in line with the principle of tailoring support and challenge to need.
Governors and senior managers of the Academies have the opportunity to develop a curriculum to meet the needs of the individual pupils in their school. They can use this to inform designs for staffing structures. The outcomes expected are not simply good examination results but also young people superbly equipped for active citizenship; committed to lifelong learning; and, ready for progression into further and higher education and work.
