Our Purpose
The core purpose of Woodlands Academy is to ensure all children are equipped for the next stage of their educational lives and to provide them with experiences and positive moments that last a lifetime.
Our Mission
Our aim is that children learn and develop the skills and character required to foster confidence, curiosity, creativity and empathy. We believe this will provide them with the confidence necessary to embrace life’s challenges.
Our Values: Vision for Learning
Our values influence everything that we plan, teach and that our children learn – confidence, challenge, curiosity, character and creativity. Academy staff support children and young people to embody these values through their experiences in our academies.
Pedagogies that support high-level learning and engagement are evidence-based. Deep and powerful understanding is formed through the use of memory and recall and children are challenged by personalised learning and project-based learning connected to the world around them which encourages opportunities for peers to work collaboratively to develop skills that go beyond their time in school.
Our school provides a Values-based Curriculum experience. This means that we promote and teach a set of values to our pupils that will ensure they develop the skills to be good citizens in the future. In doing so, we are committed to meeting their complex and diverse needs. We support our curriculum with a set of principles (5C’s) that are woven into teaching and learning in order to develop improved social and emotional skills that will positively affect behaviour.
It is our values that determine our thinking and our behaviour. They are the principles, standards or life stances that act as guides to our behaviour. They are our beliefs about what is worthwhile, the ideals for which we strive. These values form the common threads through all aspects of the academy from curriculum to quality assurance.
Our values are aligned with those of the Raleigh Education Trust because we are part of a wider educational community with a shared ethos.
Confidence
Confidence is the foundation of successful progression through life. With the right mindset, personal wellbeing and physical activity, the challenges of life can be experienced as the rich tapestry of learning and development through early adulthood. We encourage our children and young people to move from their comfort zones to nurture confidence within the unknown and unfamiliar.
Challenge
We do everything we can to prepare the children in our care for a complex, uncertain and constantly changing world, where they will go on to live, grow and work. By strengthening their resilience and academic capacity, we aim to equip them with the skills to face life’s hurdles head-on.
Curiosity
A world full of mystery and unknowns is not one we want our children to enter with fear or trepidation. We aim for the children to not only meet the challenges of early adulthood, we want to ensure they are excited to overcome them; curiosity is the doorway to exploration, understanding and the acquisition of knowledge.
Character
Essential traits to living a meaningful and purposeful life include empathy, compassion and self-awareness. By focusing on these strong areas of character alongside the achievement of personalised academic excellence, pupils will be well prepared for the future.
Creativity
Collaboration and exploration permeate throughout our school environments. Creative, original thinking and independence are encouraged throughout the curriculum. Design and Technology, art, music and dance provide experiences for children and help them understand themselves and others.