Our Vision & Values
We aim to prepare children for the modern world by helping them to become highly successful life-long learners.
King’s Cross Academy is a happy and friendly school where the children are safe, love learning, behave well and succeed, within a supportive, creative and exciting environment. We have and recruit qualified, inspirational and enthusiastic teachers and support staff who share this vision, to help children to develop their confidence, capacity, resilience and other learning skills.
Our motto, ‘Love Learning Together’, embraces our pupils, parents and teachers and our partnership working with incredible neighbours. Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children (with whom we will share our building), Central Saint Martins, PRS for Music, Waitrose, Google UK, Camley Street Natural Park, Eurostar, the Guardian and the Francis Crick Institute are all on our doorstep, offering opportunities to broaden children’s experiences and raise their achievements and aspirations.
The historic guide frame of Gasholder No.8 is the inspiration for our school emblem. It encapsulates both the industrial past of King’s Cross and its new, creative future. The Academy sits at the heart of the King’s Cross community. This is a 21st Century school for 21st Century children and the Academy helps each and every one to become a highly successful learner and to make the most of his or her potential and talents.
Our vision is made up of four key themes:
Teaching pupils how to learn
The Academy has a deep focus on learning, with a rigorous approach to core skills in Mathematics and English. Children have opportunities to develop and exercise a range of learning methods and styles, of increasing sophistication, as they move through the Academy. The Academy encourages qualities such as persistence, resilience, resourcefulness and flexibility – so that children develop a lifetime love of learning. We help children learn how to question, think creatively and become active learners and communicators.
Our challenging, forward-looking learning philosophy promotes a balance of challenge and security; critical and creative thinking; opportunities to apply knowledge, skills and understanding in different contexts; self and peer assessment; active learning through experience; emotional engagement with learning and connecting ideas across subject boundaries.
Building cross-curricular skills into a creative curriculum
The Academy has a systematic focus on key cross-curricular skills, as part of a broad and balanced, project-based curriculum. We promote children’s skills in listening, speaking, thinking, questioning, creativity and learning about learning and develop their social and emotional skills.
Skills associated with assessment for learning, such as describing, evaluating and improving learning, are promoted in every learning activity. Emotional intelligence skills: self-awareness, self-control, motivation, empathy and social skills similarly permeate all learning experiences. The Academy provides children with a complete education.
Creating an exceptional environment that promotes learning
It matters where and how education takes place. We draw upon the exceptional environment within and around this new school and the wider King’s Cross Estate, to provide activities and opportunities that inspire, excite and transform the learning of children, their parents and other adults in our multi-cultural community. The Academy reaches out to parents, fellow schools, businesses and organisations to develop a wider community of learners.
Within the Academy, children have access to a technology-rich environment. Externally, our virtual learning environment engages children, parents and the wider community. Classroom layouts, resources and displays reinforce our learning philosophy and vision and our valuable partnerships with others.
Developing children to be leaders
We develop children’s leadership by building their capacity to make reasoned, independent decisions and choices. We encourage our pupils to use their initiative, whilst working in productive partnership with others. We want children to gain confidence in their own abilities and their ability to learn and improve; and be emotionally engaged in their learning.
Developing children’s leadership informs every aspect of school life.
In particular, our curriculum supports children to become learners that are:
- Confident and self-motivated
- A good reader, writer, communicator and mathematician
- able to acquire necessary skills and knowledge
- always questioning
- Curious about the world and about the people in it;
- Persistent and resilient
- Open to new ideas
- Respectful and honest
- Able to give and receive feedback
- Able to take a risk, where it might help them learn
- Constantly exploring how to learn
- Able to learn confidently by themselves, with other children and with adults;
- Able to enjoy and love learning, knowing that it needs personal effort.
In this way, the Academy gives its pupils the best possible education and access to opportunities, so they leave school with the achievements, aspiration and confidence to be successful at secondary school and beyond.
To read our action plan for 2021-2024 please click here.
