About Us
The Samworth Enterprise Academy is an ‘all-through’ academy, providing an education for children from 3 years to 16 years, although the Academy currently only has pupils up to Year 8 and will build on this each year until 2011, when the Academy will have all years up to Year 11.
Within the Academy pupils are given opportunities to access appropriate learning opportunities when they are ready, enabling pupils with SEN to be supported and fast track opportunities for our gifted and talented pupils. This means that some of our older pupils will access GCSE and other relevant vocational learning opportunities early. The Academy is structured into three phase of learning:
- Phase One - Foundation Stage (Age 3) up to Year 4
- Phase Two – Years 5,6,7 and 8
- Phase Three – Years 9,10 and 11
Each Phase has a specific team of staff, headed up by the Assistant Principal for the Phase, who is responsible for overseeing the learning and pastoral care of the pupils within the Phase. Mrs Pat Dubas, the Principal, has overall responsibility for all children within the Academy.
The Academy is a Church of England School but welcomes children from all faiths and none, and in response to this our Admissions criteria does not have any criteria linked to this. We are a local school for local children. The Christian ethos of the Academy underpins the daily practices of both staff and pupils, and is the key driver in developing our pupils as good citizens. Co-located with the Academy is St. Christopher’s Church, and the strong partnership between the Academy and St. Christopher’s Church supports the Academy in providing a wider range of spiritual, moral, social and cultural developments for all.
The Academy’s specialism is Business and Enterprise, with a focus on food, and the Academy recognises the importance healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle is in supporting our pupils in both physical and emotional development. We believe that children need to be well nourished in order to benefit from the educational provision of the Academy. Through our Business and Enterprise opportunities we provide a wide range of opportunities for our pupils to develop their wider skills including problem solving, working with others, independent learning and enterprising skills, and we believe that these skills play a significant part in helping each of our pupils achieve future success.
Our curriculum is broad and balanced and tailored appropriately to the individual needs of our pupils. We believe that developing the literacy and numeracy skills of all our pupils is of significant importance and that as an ‘all-age school’ we have increased opportunities to successfully achieve this. We believe that providing pupils with opportunities to ‘enjoy’ learning and to ‘achieve’ are of fundamental importance and that through both our core curriculum and our extended school curriculum there are a wide range of learning opportunities to develop the creative skills of our pupils as well as the more academic learning opportunities. Within Phase 3 pupils will have a greater opportunity to focus on curriculum areas which they feel they can best succeed in, and these areas will include new learning opportunities linked more closely to future work opportunities, including academic and vocational pathways.
Our extended school programme is a much valued part of our school. There is a full range of after school and holiday activities which are accessed by many, and through our ‘Children’s University’ programme we provide opportunities, not just for our pupils but for pupils from the local area. We provide a wide range of pastoral care and support in order to meet the ranging needs of our children. We both support and challenge our pupils to do their best both academically and socially as we want all our children to have the personal and academic skills to cope with life and to become good citizens. Our range of support is varied and matched to the individual needs of our pupils. We value the importance of working in partnership with parents and other agencies in order to provide long term support for our pupils, and this is reflected in how we welcome parents and other agencies into our school on a daily basis.
We provide a range of support for our parents, families and local community through the adult learning opportunities provided at the Academy, through partnership with Leicester College and other relevant providers. Through our partnership with other agencies we provide a range of additional support including parenting support and training and support through specific initiative eg fit and active families. Finally, we take very seriously our role in raising the standards of our children, in order to give them the best possible opportunities for the future.