The ARK Schools ethos

Academic achievement: no excuses

ARK Schools has high expectations for its pupils. We believe every child can realise their potential given the right encouragement, teaching and support. We want every pupil at our academies to leave with the academic qualifications and skills they need to have real choice at 18, whether that’s to continue their education or to pursue a career. We do everything possible to ensure that every child achieves year level expectations, every year. We won’t accept excuses and we won’t make any either.

Our culture: personal responsibility and mutual respect

Our academies maintain a respectful and orderly environment so that pupils can focus on learning and teachers on teaching. We believe that a successful education includes developing and nurturing the personal qualities of every pupil.

Commitment

Our pupils, parents, teachers and support staff sign a home-school agreement before school starts, so that everyone is committed to putting in the effort to ensure that each child succeeds.

Small schools

Large schools can be intimidating. ARK academies are organised into a set of ‘small schools’, so that every pupil knows and is known by every teacher within their small school. This structure helps teachers deal with learning and behavioural issues, as well as to challenge and stretch their pupils appropriately.

All-through schools

Where the local structure allows, we would aim to establish “all through” schools, providing classes for children from nursery right through to sixth form. We believe that this benefits pupils throughout the school. Primary school children have access to specialist facilities normally exclusive to secondary schools and teacher expertise can be deployed flexibly across key stage 2 and key stage 3.

The all-through structure means that children have stability and continuity through their important and often disruptive transition period from primary to secondary school, ensuring that young people continue to make expected progress at 11+.

The core curriculum: depth before breadth

English and mathematics are the foundation for all other subjects and are critical to success at school and in life. Our academies aim to develop strong readers and communicators who love to use their skills and children who are confident working with numbers in everyday life. Our curriculum is designed and structured to ensure that all children master essential knowledge in these core subjects. In our infant schools, pupils have four literacy classes (phonics, guided reading, guided writing and handwriting) and three numeracy classes each day.

Our specialisms

All of our academies have specialist school status in mathematics. We believe it is vitally important to provide our pupils with the tools necessary to become numerically confident adults. All ARK schools specialise in maths and ARK invests a great deal in the resources needed to attract and train the best maths teachers. We will ensure that all our pupils become competent mathematicians, at ease with both its theoretical and practical uses.