Excellence Academy
The Excellence Academy strategy is based around ensuring that students reach their full potential through a combination of focused mentoring, experiences outside of the classroom and outstanding teaching. We make a commitment that all Excellence Academy students will be taught by highly effective teachers in their core subjects, offering them the very best chance to succeed. Students from Coppice regularly achieve the very highest grades at both GCSE and A-Level, and we aim to ensure that record numbers have the opportunity to attend the very best universities in the future.
We also expect our Excellence Academy students to contribute significantly to life at Coppice and provide a benchmark for their peers to follow. To ensure the group has a real ‘challenge-plus’ ethos, there is an expectation that students stay for additional study periods after school, participate in extra-curricular activities and are willing to give up their time to act as ambassadors at whole school events throughout the calendar year. We aim for these students to gain maturity, responsibility and leadership qualities, so these additional expectations are essential to the Excellence Academy experience and a mandatory part of the programme.
Excellence Academy societies include: The Shakespeare Society, Up for debate, In to Film, Being Human, Art and the Environment and a Languages Society with new societies being added soon. The societies are there to offer breadth and depth to studies within the normal school day and offer opportunities for new experiences such as the visit to Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, or the opportunity to learn German, Spanish and even Welsh!
Each half-term Excellence Academy students are set a Headteacher Challenge to complete – this may be a research task or a photo competition, with prizes on offer!
As well as developing their academic skills and knowledge, the Excellence Academy seeks to develop students into model citizens too. We want them to be thoughtful, committed and curious individuals who have social consciences. In order to achieve this, we have come with a hundred things that a young person can do outside of the classroom to develop themselves, separated into five areas: Community, School, Home, Cultural and Enrichment.
By completing as many of these activities as possible both within school and outside of it, we will have all worked together to develop a well-rounded young person who is ready for academic challenge and social success. Staff within school will be involved in seeking out and providing these experiences, but many of them can be accessed and arranged outside of the school curriculum. All we ask is for proof that these activities have taken place, and the opportunity to discuss them with students subsequently. Evidence can be collected in your scrapbook. Level 1 equates to Year 7, and level 5 equates to Year 11.
We firmly believe that what a child achieves outside of the classroom should be given equal weight to what they achieve within it, and with this programme we will give our most able students the best chance to be successful.
