Why Choose Leigh Academy Blackheath?

Welcome from the Principal

I am delighted to welcome you to Leigh Academy Blackheath, a place where tradition meets innovation and potential is realised within a nurturing community.  Our purposeful and multi-disciplined learning environment creates a climate where students not only acquire knowledge but also master the essential problem solving and critical skills needed to succeed and lead in the 21st century.  Our community is collaborative and, together, we ensure our students develop into powerful citizens for a digital future.

We believe in building strong partnerships with parents and carers, working closely together to ensure all learners succeed. We pride ourselves on the positive working relationships we form at Leigh Academy Blackheath, not only between students and teachers but also between the academy and home.

Our values of Respect, Integrity, Ambition, Scholarship and Resilience permeate everything we do and our small school, human-scale education model, delivered through a college structure, ensures the educational experience for every student is personalised.

Ms Emma Smith | Principal

A group of students walking towards the camera, laughing and talking
LAB Prospectus Web Tile
Our Prospectus

Why Choose Leigh Academy Blackheath?

Judged by OFSTED as Outstanding in December 2022, Leigh Academy Blackheath is a place where tradition meets innovation and potential is realised within a nurturing community. Our purposeful and multi-disciplined learning environment creates a climate where students not only acquire knowledge, but also master the essential problem solving and critical skills needed to succeed and lead in the 21st century. Our community is collaborative and, together, we ensure our students develop into powerful citizens for a digital future.

We believe in building strong partnerships with parents and carers, working closely together to ensure all learners succeed. We pride ourselves on the positive working relationships we form at Leigh Academy Blackheath, not only between students and teachers but also between the academy and home.

By applying to Leigh Academy Blackheath, you also become part of Leigh Academies Trust.

The Trust was formed in 2008 with the linking of the Leigh Technology Academy and Longfield Academy under one governing body. Today, we encompass more than 20,000 students between the ages of 2 months and 19 in 33 primary, secondary and special academies including one all-through academy and one grammar school.

We believe that every learner is entitled to an enriching, varied and personalised education; delivered through a broad and balanced curriculum that provides challenge, irrespective of need, starting point or background. Our commitment to maximising the potential of every child; teaching them the skills they need to be successful and nurturing a desire to be a lifelong learner, will prepare them for whichever career path they choose to follow. At Leigh Academy Blackheath we inspire our learners to go beyond what they are taught and seek what they do not yet know.

Our strong learning community works together and shares the value of collaboration; every member of our academy family works together to achieve success cultivating a strong sense of belonging. Our belief in ‘human scale’ education, delivered through a schools within schools model, means every one of our students is known and valued. Strong pastoral care is at the heart of our academy and we place great importance on building strong partnerships with parents and carers.

Digital technology is the future. No matter what career our students pursue they will need to perform, succeed and lead with digital confidence and expertise. LAB will create and deliver a curriculum and approach to teaching and learning which ensures our students develop into powerful digital citizens on both a national and a global scale.

Our inclusive community has ambition and drive. We embrace challenge and collaboration. At Leigh Academy Blackheath we are a family and together we cultivate a culture of belonging.

Where tradition meets innovation and potential is realised within a nurturing community.

  • Ambition
  • Resilience
  • Integrity
  • Respect
  • Scholarship

Our Curriculum

By developing depth of knowledge and establishing effective learning skills at KS3 we ensure our students are ready to embark on the academic rigour of the new KS4 curriculum and examinations. To achieve this our KS3 curriculum is delivered through the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) framework and the development of the IB learner profile attributes.

Our curriculum is constructed to promote collaborative, cross-curricular and phase learning whenever and wherever possible. Learning opportunities reflect professional business approaches with ‘real-life’ projects, delivered through project based learning: giving students valuable insight into working for a client, as part of a team or to a deadline.

The key elements which underpin our philosophy on curriculum are:

  • Access for all;
  • Development of basic skills and the acquisition and mastery of specialist digital skills;
  • The development of creative thinking and problem solving within all aspects of the learning process.

Our extended curriculum

A full programme of enrichment opportunities is offered, not only to enhance learning, but also to enable students to pursue deeper understanding of areas they are passionate about, to develop particular skills and interests, and to enjoy new and exciting experiences. At Leigh Academy Blackheath, we know the value extra-curricular opportunities provide for pupils to further their outcomes, perspectives and not to mention social opportunities. This is why we strive to offer a wide range of artistic, creative and sporting activities.

Intent

At LAB, we seek to deliver rigorous, diverse content, carefully chosen and coherently sequenced to ensure students have the ‘best of what’s been thought and said’ in each subject stored in their long-term memory, so that they can apply this confidently and skilfully in ways recognised as valuable by each discipline. 

In order to realise this, there are three underlying principles to our curriculum design:

  1. Powerful knowledge specified in meticulous detail by each subject; 
  2. Said knowledge to be well sequenced, with clear connections between current and prior learning, routinely and explicitly drawn upon in lessons, and well understood by students.
  3. Students’ learning is to be evaluated, through carefully designed assessments that effectively test whether acquisition of said knowledge has been successful, and which allow for the identification of misconceptions and errors to be addressed in future lessons.

At LAB, we create a learning climate that allows all of our pupils to make consistent progress such that they will excel, personally and professionally, in their future lives. To achieve this, we are guided by the principles of teaching and learning set out below.

Reviewing material

  • Engaging students in cumulative recapping of knowledge through regular, low-stakes quizzing.

Sequencing concepts 

  • Presenting new material using small steps;
  • Having students engage critically with inquiry-based questions once their understanding of content is secure.

Questioning

  • Employing a range of differentiated questioning techniques to check for understanding;

Stages of practice

  • Being explicit about what we want pupils to do, setting out the key steps (with worked examples) that pupils will have to repeat in order to complete a task successfully;
  • Having pupils engage in extended independent thinking and practice on a regular basis;
  • Obtaining a high success rate which meets the needs of all learners.

High expectations

  • Delivering academically-challenging content that exposes students to the best of what has been thought and said in each subject;
  • Supporting students in the self-managing of uniform, punctuality, equipment and conduct in line with the behaviour policy;
  • Supporting students in the development of strong communication skills appropriate to a scholarly learning environment; 
  • Promoting academic honesty as part of a learner profile that develops personal honesty and the responsible use of information technology.

Although many of these features would be expected to appear in most lessons, it is important to note that we are not prescriptive about either the structure of lessons or the forms these principles might take. Instead, we recognise the diverse approaches employed by different teachers and subject areas across the academy, and know that a varied diet of experience is healthy and beneficial for our broad range of learners. Our staff are expected to regularly engage in evidence-informed professional development in ways which enhance their individual expertise, flair and creativity.

At LAB, we recognise that the assessment process can help us to learn, by recapping knowledge and interrupting the forgetting process. Tracking data is also necessary to ensure that every child’s learning trajectory is noticed, but assessment is not an end in itself; rather, it is a tool. 

The role of assessment at LAB is to evaluate whether pupils have successfully acquired the knowledge and skills that we wish them to, and to facilitate responsive teaching to address misconceptions. The principles which govern assessment at LAB (for each department) can be found below:

  • Test the knowledge specified in detail on the curriculum map;
  • Ensure the assessment is valid (that it does not unfairly rely on students’ reading comprehension);
  • Ensure that each assessment tests knowledge and its extended application (in a manner recognised as valuable by each subject);
  • That assessments are used to promote targeted, responsive teaching and intervention, in both the short and longer term.

Further evidence of the impact of our curriculum will be apparent in the outcomes of bi-annual LAT assessments and the comparison of LAB results against other trust academies and educational institutions delivering the IB MYP globally.  Minimal difference between the achievement and progress levels of vulnerable groups with other students will also provide powerful evidence of a strong taught curriculum.

In addition to the above, analysis of the number of students participating in co-curricular activities and community projects, combined with the levels of attendance, punctuality and positive behaviour for learning records, as well as students’ interactions in their digital classrooms, will indicate the level of student engagement with learning and the total curriculum. At LAB, we believe that positive attitudes to learning and respect for the academy and the wider community constitute a key indicator of the success of our curriculum.

For more information on our curriculum, please visit our dedicated page.

Curriculum at Leigh Academy Blackheath

Innovative Learning with a Focus on Digital Skills

At Leigh Academy Blackheath, learning is not confined to a traditional classroom environment. We cultivate a climate for learning where all learners can effectively create, communicate, collaborate and use critical thinking and problem solving at anytime and anywhere. We place equal importance in the development of effective learning skills and positive attitudes as we do in the acquisition of subject specific knowledge and skill mastery. Our aim is to ensure all our learners realise their full potential during their time in full time education.

At LAB we:

  • Promote safe online practice through our effective awareness and digital citizenship programme;
  • Create virtual and traditional classrooms for all curriculum subjects;
  • Blend together traditional pedagogy and digital learning approaches to create 21st Century learning environments;
  • Teach thematically where appropriate to create strong connections across and between curriculum subjects, contextualising content and validating purpose;
  • Develop critical thinking and problem solving skills through real life project based learning activities;
  • Engage with specialists, industry partners and education practitioners on digital projects, shared learning opportunities and research;
  • Use digital technology to increase efficiencies, improve effective time management and increase productivity through a better collaboration framework and communication structure.

A School for our Community

We recognise that in today’s society young people are not often taught about their place in, or their responsibilities as, a member of their local community. We believe very strongly that our students should be given opportunities wherever and whenever possible to learn, develop and grow into powerful citizens of the future and that this should be achieved through regular and carefully planned learning opportunities during their time at secondary school.

As part of a college community, students have the opportunity to work with a variety of mixed student groups which helps them to build strong and purposeful relationships with students of different ages, gender, faith or social background. Creating opportunities for all students to build, develop and sustain positive social and working relationships helps to support the way they do this outside of the school community.

We serve the local community. Through our community projects we work in partnership with local individuals, groups and organisations to support activities, events and charities.