Our Curriculum – Mulberry Academy London Dock

Aims for Education at Mulberry Academy London Dock

Our aim is to support the very highest aspirations of students at Mulberry Academy London Dock because we believe this enables them to lead successful, happy and fulfilled lives, making a contribution to their own community and to wider British society.

Mulberry students are proud of their identity, which includes strong British values as well as a rich and diverse cultural and religious heritage.

Every student receives an education that has three key aims:

To engender high levels of academic ambition with knowledge of how to learn and how to communicate one’s learning and strong understanding through high quality, confident writing and speaking. Students will learn the intellectual skills and technical language for the subjects they study so that they can perform at the highest level. Students will be taught how to be independent learners and how to work together to support each other in successful learning;
To provide rich personal development (character education) that includes a strong moral, spiritual and social foundation, to foster a highly developed imagination and creativity. Students will be taught to think critically and analytically, to be curious and questioning and to be open-minded with a strong understanding of the world around them. Students will be supported to develop confidence, resilience and security in their abilities and to extend their talents. Students will be helped to develop their ‘voice’ and will be provided with a variety of platforms from which they can practice public speaking and making their voices heard;
To enable the development of high aspirations and self-determination through opportunities for leadership, engagement with higher education and the professional workplace and experience of different cultures. Students will become global ambassadors – for the school, their community and for British society – able to encounter challenge, to negotiate solutions and to make peace and prosperity a realistic prospect for all those with whom they live and work. Students will actively work for positive social change.

In belonging to the Trust, students at the new school will benefit from what has been achieved in the past through understanding the wider world for which we are preparing our students, through upholding social cohesion and a good social mix as well as knowing the impact of systemic disadvantage on educational achievement and social mobility, working hard to eradicate it.

Mulberry Academy London Dock will benefit from what has been achieved from within our family of schools through understanding systemic disadvantage where it exists and working hard to open doors for all of our students.

We know that networks of support are essential for young people in their early careers that are often started at school, everything possible is done and will continue to be done to make connections and foster relationships with external partners in higher education, business, industry, the arts and the sciences in support of students in the Mulberry family.

What we will provide at Mulberry Academy London Dock will be enticing and attractive. It will build community cohesion through our extended school provision in the same way that we do at all our schools. It will offer the chance to develop a sense of self as a young person, to decide their place in the world and to articulate their power to achieve.

It will help young people encounter a holistic view of gender roles that grounds its power in equality, sensitivity and shared control. The school will model together a world in which there is a ‘partnership of equals’ between women and men, boys with girls – a world where diversity and rich cultural and religious heritages are valued and respected – a world in which voices are heard and control is negotiated.

There will be an emphasis on high quality subject teaching supported by high quality support for learning and intervention. Inclusion services will support personal development and there will be excellent pastoral care. Leadership will be strong with high levels of expertise in education, supported by knowledgeable, committed and challenging governance.

Mulberry’s corporate and arts partners such as Mercedes Grand Prix LTD, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, the British Film Institute, the National Theatre, the London Stock Exchange Group, the Donmar Warehouse, the Southbank Centre and others all contribute extensively to the wider extra-curricular experiences which Mulberry is able to offer in support of its aims.

Curriculum plan

Subject/other activity	Hours per week	Mandatory/ Voluntary	Comments
English	3.3 at KS3 & 4	Mandatory
Mathematics	3.3 at KS3 & 4	Mandatory
Science	3.3 at KS3 5 at KS4	Mandatory	All students will study two sciences at KS4, with the option to study triple sciences.
History	1.6 at KS3 to Y8	Mandatory
Geography	1.6 at KS3 to Y8	Mandatory
History or Geography	2.5 at KS4 from Y9	Mandatory
MFL (French with either Spanish or Bengali)	3.3 to Y8	Mandatory
MFL (Either French, Spanish or	2.5 at KS4 from Y9	Mandatory	All students will do an MFL at GCSE
Subject/other activity	Hours per week	Mandatory/ Voluntary	Comments
Religious Studies	1 period of 50 mins at KS3 to Y8	Mandatory
Religious Studies	1.6 at KS4 from Y9	Mandatory	All students will do GCSE RE
Citizenship	1 period of 50 mins at KS3	Mandatory
PE	1.6 at KS3 & KS4	Mandatory	Dance is taught discretely at KS3 to all students rather than in PE lessons
Drama	1 period of 50 mins at KS3	Mandatory
Art	1 period of 50 mins at KS3	Mandatory
Music	1 period of 50 mins at KS3	Mandatory
Technology (Graphics, Food, Textiles & RM)	1.6 at KS3	Mandatory	Choice is from: Art, Drama, Dance, Music, Graphics, RM, Food, Textiles
Art and Technology/engineerin g Choice at KS4	2.5 at KS4	Mandatory	All students must take a GCSE in art or technology. A vocational offer for STEM Academy pathway – engineering level 2
Golden Time	2.5 at KS4	Mandatory	Choice from a range of subjects.
Computer Science	1.6 at KS3	Mandatory	Optional at GCSE
KS5			Students will study three A levels from a choice. They can study level 3 engineering BTEC. Private study time on site (10 hours per week)

Mulberry learning community

All schools in the Mulberry family are part of a vibrant learning community; staff and students have a shared responsibility to ensure that all students develop a range of skills to be active, independent and lifelong learners. All learning will provide appropriate levels of challenge linked with students’ prior attainment and learning, variety and pace in order to maximise the opportunities for students to develop their confidence, creativity, leadership and love of learning in order to attain the necessary qualifications to broaden their life chances.

The Mulberry family of schools is inclusive and for students of all abilities in their learning. Teaching and learning will be personalised, using a wide range of differentiated techniques including kinaesthetic learning and online independent study. Mulberry Learn, powered by Microsoft teams underpins teaching and learning – as a tool for delivering an outstanding curriculum and high quality teaching, collaborating, networking, communicating and ensuring every member of our community can access teaching, learning and resources 24/7 and from any location.

We want all our learners to make exceptional progress so that they can successfully compete in a global workplace. It is our responsibility to carefully and accurately track student progress and to intervene appropriately through personalised planning so that all students succeed. We will ensure that the daily diet of learning for all our students is high quality: every minute; every lesson; every day.

The Mulberry family of schools is equally committed to encouraging teaching and support staff colleagues to engage in professional dialogue about learning; we promote collaboration, experimentation and research into how we can best serve the needs of our students. We encourage all our colleagues to be reflective practitioners and to support colleagues in their own lifelong learning. The Mulberry College of Education spans across all schools in the trust and is a vehicle for developing and implementing outstanding professional development opportunities for support staff, teachers and leaders. A team of leading practitioners from each of the MST schools offer professional support, advice and consultancy.

A strong school to school menu of activities is offered within the trust, underpinned by a commitment to system wide leadership. The Mulberry College of Education also offers the services of the ‘Leadership Academy’- focused on strengthening leadership of all staff, and at all levels, including middle leaders, the drivers of school improvement. Coaching programmes will be used within Mulberry Academy London Dock- and teaching and learning triads formed to collaborate, observe and strengthen best practice in a climate of openness and professional dialogue.

At the Mulberry family of schools, learning does not just take place in the classroom. Therefore, much importance is placed on personal development appropriate to further and higher education as well as the workplace. Students are encouraged to develop an understanding of how they can become better learners, how emotional intelligence and personal learning and thinking skills can help them progress as well as their responsibility as community members and successful citizens.

Mulberry has identified six areas of pedagogy that lead to high quality teaching, learning and progress:

Planning for Progress
Assessment for learning
Displaying technical capability
Dialogue
Literacy
Engagement

This is known as PADDLE and all teachers and support staff in schools belonging to the family are expected to use these elements of teaching when planning for learning. Teachers are expected to adapt department schemes of work, lesson plans and resources in light of the specific needs of their students. They must record accurate assessment data and provide regular formative feedback to students in line with school policy. If students are not on track, wave 1 and 2 interventions must be deployed quickly to prevent any students falling behind.

Assessment for Learning will be used throughout the schools as well as other formative feedback methods.

Curriculum subjects

The Mulbacc curriculum is a rich, academic curriculum for 11-19 year olds providing a seven-year learning journey with these features:

a strong, successful emphasis on basic skills – literacy, numeracy, ICT
a rigorous and unashamedly ambitious approach to academic learning
inclusion and differentiation
a flourishing, vibrant arts and science education
an extensive extra-curricular programme
opportunities for performance, self-expression and public speaking
global citizenship and political literacy
growth in leadership skills and understanding.

Mulbacc: Key Stage 3

Full coverage of the National Curriculum
KS3 Subject Mastery
Assessment for Learning & formative feedback to students
Academic writing & voice / reading for pleasure
The importance of number

Structure of the day

Students will be registered at 8.40 each morning up to 9.00 in tutor groups of 30. Assemblies will take place during registration for a year group in rotation.
Lessons will be of 50 minutes duration. There will be six lessons each day. There will be 30 lessons per week per day.
The curriculum will be delivered in 25 hours per week.
Enrichment will occur during the lunch break from 12.40-13.50 and at the end of the school day from 15.30 onwards.
The 180 students admitted to the mixed school in each cohort will taught in seven classes in Key Stage 3.

Mulbacc: Key Stage 4

Key Stage 4 shows the core of subjects all students will study as apart of the MulBacc, a core of 11 GCSE qualifications (brackets shows the weekly allocation of 50 minute lessons).

English language and literature (4)
Mathematics (4)
Double science (6)
History or geography (3)
Modern language French or Spanish (3)
Art and technology (a choice from drama, art, music, dance, graphics, resistant materials or product design, engineering)
Religious Studies (2)
Physical education (2)

MulBacc Golden time (3)

Three periods within the 30 available lessons for choices from

Triple science
Citizenship/history
Computer science

Physical Education Key Stages 3, 4 and 5

A full range of sports, on and off site, will include:

Rowing
Martial arts and judo
Boxing, including kick boxing
Climbing
Dance
Badminton
Racquets – badminton
Cricket
Basketball
Cycling
Hockey
Football
Fitness in a fitness suite, weight training
Distance running

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Mulberry Academy London Dock
6 Virginia Street
London
E1W 2AD
020 3745 8080
info@mulberrylondondock.org

Mulberry Academy London Dock is part of the Mulberry Schools Trust which is a charitable company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (Company No. 10035860).

Company’s registered office: Mulberry Schools Trust, Richard Street, Commercial Road, London E1 2JP.