Important Information
School Improvement Plan
College Vision
For all students to be
School Ready;
Work Ready;
Life Ready
To ensure that the college delivers an ambitious curriculum that continues to raise aspirations and standards for all groups of learners in every school year.
College Improvement Priority
Effectiveness of Leadership and Management
To ensure consistency in the quality of leadership and management to support improved outcomes for all students
Further develop positive engagement with all stakeholders.
Further develop high quality leadership at all levels.
Governors fully understand all aspects of college life and carry out their role effectively.
Develop support staff departmental standards, to provide an outstanding working and learning environment.
Further development of student voice – student ambassadors, student council, student voice, subject student voice, student consultation re policies.
Embed a clear, impact driven line management system across all levels of leadership, for both support and teaching staff. Ensure challenge and development opportunities and support are provided for all leaders to enable effective succession planning.
Ensure Governors continue to hold senior leaders to account through high quality governor training sessions and robust link governor meetings which are followed by feedback to, and questioning from the governing body.
Embed the support staff strategy, promote its ownership and drive its priorities through departmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Continue to improve the quality of information on the website, further develop communication through social media, encourage greater involvement of parents with SEND students (with a particular focus on the APDR cycle), raise parental awareness of College expectations through Parent Information evenings.
Continue to raise expectations of Subject Leader role – ownership of Intent and its embedding within department; ownership of responsibility for pegagogical development witihin department; ownership of assessment and feedback as tools for learning. Further develop accuracy of reflection and improvement planning through the effective use of DSEFs and DIPs.
Provide effective safeguarding training and training on sexual harrassment, online sexual abuse and sexual violence for all governors. Ensure they are fully aware of how the college is responding to these concerns.
Embed the appraisal system for support staff and continue to develop a CPD programme that ensures effective practice at all levels.
Continue to embed quality CPD, further reduce workload pressure, respond to areas identified through staff voice, continue to develop support for staff wellbeing.
Continue to develop and embed good practice in relation to ITT and the new Early Careers Framework. Ensure we meet all statutory requirements and that training for and quality assurance of the enhanced mentoring provision is in place. Ensure the timetable for 2022 takes account of the impact of the ECT on staffing allocations.
Introduce and develop ‘The Horizon School of Leadership’ as a programme for Subject Leaders, Assistant subject leaders, Deputy Heads of School and staff identified to be emerging senior leaders.
Quality of Education
To drive the development of a challenging curriculum and expert teaching to ensure the highest quality of classroom experience
Embed curriculum development, through the ownership of college and departmental intent and the development of robust schemes of learning.
Drive and support the implementation of the T&L framework to ensure high quality teaching and learning.
Improve the quality and use of formative and summative assessments, and the consistent use of feedback to develop metacognition.
Support students to improve their reading and numeracy, as skills for life.
Embed systems and structures to provide all students with tailored, timely and effective support.
Embed curriculum development, through the ownership of college and departmental intent and the development of robust schemes of learning.
Refine and embed the Teaching and Learning framework, ensuring that it supports the development of individual pedagogy and effective classroom practice, so that we challenge every learner, in every lesson, every day.
Ensure our target setting process is challenging, fair, transparent and consistent – that it supports the progress of each individual student, reflects and builds on previous success and treats all learners equally. Within departments, use targets to monitor progress carefully, challenge under-achievement, put appropriate support in place for those who need it and ensure that no learner is left to fall behind.
Promote reading within the curriculum (using disciplinary literacy to underpin this) by ensuring targeted vocabulary instruction is in every subject and through the development of students’ ability to read complex academic texts.
Continue to support classroom staff to fully understand the varying needs of students with SEND and empower them to effectively meet their needs in the classroom, through CPD and key sources of information including thumbnails and ISPs.
Further develop robust schemes of learning, together with a clear understanding about where and how these fit within the department’s long term plan, and how skills and knowledge are developed within each – both at departmental leadership and classroom level.
Introduce and drive a CPD model that uses QA data to develop practice at whole college, department and individual level.
Further develop the quality of formative and summative assessment across college. Ensure progress checks are low stake and effectively support the assessment of on-going learning within lessons; ensure the quality of summative assessments is consistent across departments, they enable an accurate view of learning over time and that outcomes are used to identify and address gaps in learning. Work with individual departments to enable flexible consistency in the scheduling of summative assessments, whilst also ensuring students are graduallly being prepared for the demands of the GCSE exam series.
Develop a culture of reading for pleasure by continuing to develop and embed ‘Reading Journeys’ (Year 7 and 8), raising the profile and quality of the library provision and promoting reading through extra-curricular opportunities.
Ensure that interventions address the needs of SEND students efficiently, through effective systems of tracking, monitoring and QA.
Develop a detailed understanding of how learning within departmental schemes is linked to that in other subject areas, and how prior learning elsewhere can be used to broaden knoweldge, develop skills and deepen understanding within indivudal schemes of learning.
Further develop the Home Learning strategy, so as to improve student retrieval practice. Ensure students understand the learning process, are able to use this to embed prior knowledge and skills, and are able to take responsibility for future learning.
Further develop a departmental approach to feedback and response, to enable students to develop their metacognitive skills within a particular subject area as well as across the curriculum, and build so their overall resilience and as learners.
Support students who are currently not reading at their chronological age by identification of reading abilities, ensuring quality wave one teaching addresses the reading needs of all students and a package of high quality intervention is in place and used effectively.
Refine the Assess, Plan, Do, Review process, ensuring effective use of data and enhancing parental engagement during this process.
Embed the teaching of corporate mathematical methods across subject areas, with a particular focus on Science, Geography, DT and Business, and so foster a greater understanding of how a cross-curricular approach to learning strengthens skills and develops general confidence.
Introduce and drive the Additional student support strategy with an initial focus on PP and boys. Quality assure the impact of the strategy through drop ins, work scrutiny and data returns (attendance, punctuality, behaviour, attainment and progress.
Behaviour & Attitudes
To enable students to become positive role models
Develop students’ character and attitudes.
Positively engage students through effective support, interventions and restorative practice.
Continue to improve attendance and punctuality for all groups of learners.
Drive and embed ‘character in the classroom’, encouraging students to take ownership of and responsibility for their own learning, meeting high expectations and standards across the college.
Continue to implement early intervention and support to reduce the number of repeat offenders in Reflection and Internal Exclusion, in addition to a continued focus on reducing the number of C3s and C5s.
Continue to improve the attendance of SEND and PP students through effective and bespoke attendance interventions, (letter system, wellbeing calls, incentives, weekly meeting between SEND and attendance teams, home visits)
Develop a sense of pride in the college building and environment and continue to develop a ‘cleaner, greener Horizon’ by tackling litter, particularly at unstructured times
Improve effectiveness of the KS3 Inclusion school (previously called ‘Nurture’), to ensure the student experience meets bespoke needs and promotes engagement. This will support the early identification of specific needs.
Improve punctuality to College and lessons throughout the day for all students. Introduce a consistent approach to address punctuality concerns (including repeat offenders) across all school teams.
Ensure a continued ‘zero tolerance’ of any form of harrassment or bullying. Identify patterns and intervene early, to educate students and prevent abuse. Carry out a termly student survey and deliver follow up assemblies with findings and planned actions. Embed robust systems for staff reporting and monitoring.
Further develop the Praise culture across college, with a particular focus on celebrating outstanding ‘home learning’ through school team celebration assemblies, half termly analysis of the praise dashboard and follow up meetings with SLs to ensure effective praise is consistently used by staff.
Reduce the college persistent absence (PA) figure to below 10%, supported by form tutor wellbeing calls and targeted individual student attendance plans led by school teams.
Following Inclusion Quality Mark ‘Centre of Excellence Status’, maintain the IQM action plan and disseminate, share and encourage inclusive practice.
Continue to promote student well-being and mindfulness through a wide range of interventions and support (internal and external), with a particular focus on self harm, eating disorders, anxiety and mental health concerns.
Personal Development
To further develop students’ personal and social development within the academic and wider curriculum
Develop life enriching opportunities for all students beyond their socio-economic norm.
Raise awareness and deepen student understanding of modern society, enabling students to make informed choices in their life.
Ensure social, moral, spiritual and cultural development is an integral aspect of students’ learning.
Embed a Careers and Enterprise curriculum that supports sustained student achievement post-16 for all.
Launch and embed the Student Experience Passport (Year 7-9), to promote and track student participation and engagement in wider college life.
Further develop and support the delivery of a diverse calendar of awareness events across the year – including celebrating a range of religious events, Antibullying Week, My Money Week, LGBTQ+ Awareness, Safer Internet Day, Black History Month, Global Recycling Week, Mental Health Awareness Week.
Ensure a carefully sequenced citizenship curriculum, that is both timely and appropriate. Provide high quality training for all citizenship teachers before they deliver key topics and QA provision.
Focus on the delivery of Gatsby Benchmarks 5 and 6 (many ‘gaps’ in this due to the impact of the covid pandemic), to ensure all students are given access to the best opportunities and widest experiences.
Support subject leaders embedding the six areas of Personal Development within their curriculum offer (1. Character building, 2. Cleaner, Greener Horizon, 3. Community Action, 4. Cultural literacy, 5. Careers and Enterprise, 6. Health and Wellbeing/RSE). Continue to support enrichment, extra curricular and educational visits.
Plan carefully targeted and responsive parental workshops, to address key issues and ensure students leave Horizon ‘life ready’.
Ensure all staff and governors complete the training on sexual harrassment, online sexual abuse, sexual violence and peer on peer abuse.
Further develop subject links, to embed a thorough programme of careers and skills into the curriculum.
Target identified student cohorts (including vulnerable, PP and students at risk of exclusion) and support their personal development journey.
Provide further opportunities for students to voice their opinions and thoughts on all aspects of school life, to help to shape the future of the college.
Ensure all staff and governors complete the training on sexual harrassment, online sexual abuse, sexual violenceContinue to develop the form tutor programme, including sharing student voice findings as part of the ‘Votes for Schools’ package. Undertake regular QA, to ensure consistent high quality provision within and across year groups. Develop opportunites for Y11 to complete drop down afternoons to raise awareness and educate regards SMSC. and peer on peer abuse.
Continue to build a Careers offer that enables all students to become ’employable for life’ through the ‘Getting Ready for Work’; ‘Getting into Work’; ‘Getting on in Work’ scheme of learning.
Continue to raise student awareness of the importance of protecting our environment and reducing litter in College through initiatives such as reducing the sale of single use plastic in College