How will we meet the needs of higher prior attaining students at Abbey College?

At Abbey College, we believe in providing all of our students with a challenging curriculum that provides a broad and balanced range of subjects and opportunities, to ensure that all students can be challenged in their lessons, in our extra-curricular opportunities and be ambitious in their next steps.

What is our philosophy for meeting the needs of students with higher prior attainment?

• To identify the higher prior attaining students
• To address their needs by providing support and teaching which makes their learning engaging, inclusive, aspirational and challenging
• To provide opportunities and offers beyond the classroom to help students to develop their self-confidence and independence
• To liaise with parents of higher prior attaining students so they are aware of opportunities on offer
• To raise aspirations through our opportunities, offers, challenge in lessons and career guidance

How are higher prior attaining students identified?

• KS2 SATs results
• Cognitive Ability Tests
• Progress tests in English and Maths
• GCSE results for the Sixth Form
• Teacher recommendations

The information is collated and made available to all staff and the top 10% of all students are identified as higher prior attaining.

How will we provide support for higher prior attaining students?

Quality-first teaching strategies are implemented by our Lead Learners for all our students including our higher prior attaining students. Such strategies include:

• Ensuring clear progression within our curriculum model, detailed within our curriculum plans
• Checking pupils have the knowledge base to succeed, our staff professional development enables our staff to continue to develop their subject knowledge and implement curriculum models based upon subject specialist research
• Identifying what excellence looks like in each subject and modelling this with students
• Assessing students according to our curriculum model to check learning
• Embedding metacognition and teaching pupils these skills to help them to learn effectively
• Embedding retrieval and modelling to teach students about the importance of retrieval practice and organisation and encouraging students to challenge themselves within the lessons, showcasing problem solving skills or setting tasks which require them to apply their knowledge.
• Offering an excellent careers programme which showcases a wide range of next steps from Y7 onwards, with routine visits from universities, employers and apprenticeship talks. All students in KS4 and KS5 also have a careers appointment and the opportunity to complete work experience.
• Providing a range of opportunities and offers beyond the curriculum which can encourage our higher prior attaining students to embrace challenge, develop confidence and their soft skills through opportunities such as STEM ambassadors, Prefects and Sports Leaders and from 2023, KS4 and 5 higher prior attaining students are automatically invited into The Society.
• Supporting Sixth Form students through one to ones with their tutors where any areas of underperformance are identified, students are given support and action plans. They also can lead within the Society and undertake the Extended Project Qualification.

What extra-curricular offers and opportunities are offered for our higher prior attaining students?

At Abbey College there are a range of trips, clubs, and programmes available to all students which enable them to have opportunities to build academic excellence, whilst also developing cultural capital and highlighting aspirational next steps.

Some previous examples of offers include:

• The higher project qualification for students in KS4, students can apply to complete an independent research project answering an inquiry question of their choice
• The UK Maths Challenge
• Meridian Trust challenges
• The Rotary club engineering competitions
• Trips to Wadham College Oxford
• Oxbridge Preparation classes and mentoring
• The extended project qualification in KS5, where students will research and submit a lengthy project, some examples of previous projects are showcased in Study 6.

RSE is a very broad topic, which makes up part of our Personal Development Curriculum. It includes learning about families, respectful relationships (including friendships), online and media, being safe and intimate and sexual relationships (including sexual health). It is often the last of these sections that families want to know most about.  The information below will give you the information you need to know about this important part of our curriculum.

Before the start of every academic year (Summer term 2) we consult with parents and students on the RSE curriculum. If you would like more information or would like to support us in reviewing our Relationships and Sex Education policy then please contact:

 To read the government guidance on RSE please visit the government website