Curriculum

The ACE Curriculum Offer

ACE seeks to support students in re-engaging with education, addressing barriers to personal growth and supporting students with successful transition into the next stage of their learning. Every student is an individual but has an equal right to a high quality and holistic package that supports their strengths, interests and aspirations and allows all students to achieve their best.

For all students at ACE, the curriculum seeks to support interests and ambitions, to maximise the opportunities for progress and success and to provide a broad and enriched experience of academic, vocational and personal learning that supports all students on their plausible route to adulthood.

For students on a Route Mainstream pathway, the curriculum seeks to support successful and sustained re-integration into mainstream schooling and focuses on key learning, behaviour and wellbeing strategies that can be used both now and in the future.
For students on a Route 19 Pathway, the curriculum seeks to provide core academic qualifications, relevant life skills and work skills accreditations and identify and support onward successful and sustained transition into further education, employment or training post Year 11.

ACE Led Qualifications

The ACE led qualification offer is regularly reviewed and adapted as our student cohorts change. All students would have English, Maths and usually Science and PSHE as a core and then take additional subjects depending on interest or future plans.

The ACE offer is then supplemented by additional qualifications students’ study for either back at school, or in their alternative provision placement.

ACE and Home Learning

Whilst we recognise that in person, face to face learning is invariably the best option, post pandemic, we are keeping the capacity to provide Home and Online learning as an option, for specific students, for a specific period of time if this is agreed to be appropriate.

This would be delivered through a combination of in person / online tutoring, provided work packs, online learning resources and Google Classroom sessions. The exact package is tailored to the specific student and circumstances and would be in place for the shortest possible time.

The intention will always be to transition the student back to full time, face to face education as soon as is appropriate and practical, not just for educational but also social and wellbeing reasons.

Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ)

The JCQ is an independent body that oversees all examinations across England and Wales to ensure that all exams.

In terms of school exams, they exist to provide for all schools in England and Wales:

The examinations timetable
The exams calendar and key dates throughout the year
Oversee the design, quality control and distribution of exam papers
Set the rules for how exams must be conducted
Give approval for any students who may need some form of access arrangement (extra time, a reader, a scribe, a prompt etc)
Oversee fairness and quality control in the exam marking proves
Set out the guidelines for releasing results and certificates.

ACE as a school has an unannounced inspection each year, at least once, from JCQ in order to ensure that all examinations are being run in accordance with the correct rules and procedures and to make sure that all students, across the country, are being treated the same and fairly.

More information on the JCQ rules that apply to all students, can be found below.