At Whitley Abbey Business and Enterprise College in Coventry, an innovative approach to the KS3 curriculum enables Year 7 pupils to spend the whole morning with just one teacher, covering multiple subjects.
Using the RSA's Opening Minds approach, the school focuses on providing learners with core skills and competences in order to engage with their learning and with the world.
In this programme, we follow a cross-curriculum lesson in which risk-taking is a key skill, and observe a lesson on migration where pupils are asked to make difficult decisions.
Teachers also discuss the benefits of the school's approach for pupils and their own teaching, and reveal the challenges of teaching outside their specialist subject.
The school believes that responsibility for learning leads to responsible behaviour, with falling detention rates and improved attendance being evidence for the innovation's success.
