POLITICS STATEMENT

Our aim is to give students a Politics curriculum that inspires them to become confident and independent learners who can understand and use different knowledge and skills to complement them in school and in the wider world.

We aim to teach students to argue, listen, understand and respect the views of those around them and to help them to be valuable members of the local and national community.

Our core values of Believe | Strive | Achieve underpin this vision and form an integral part of a student's daily life at Westfield Academy. We want students to leave us not only having fulfilled their personal best in terms of academic results, but also equipped with these core values to enable them to thrive in all stages of their lives.

We are proud to educate students from all starting points and backgrounds. Our community is diverse; with this in mind, we want to inspire every child and their family to have high aspirations for themselves. We want them to believe they can access the best opportunities in life, and we understand that the key to this is giving them the best outcomes.

We are ambitious for our students; we believe the Politics curriculum is wide-ranging to facilitate an academic overview of the subject and to ensure students achieve academic excellence in taking the subject at A-Level.

Our Politics curriculum has a good balance between knowledge and skills. It also goes beyond the requirements of the subject specification to ensure students have a developed and empathetic view of the world around them, underpinned by a strong emphasis on British values, emphasising the importance of a creative, student-centred curriculum which is suited to the context of our school and local community.

We want students to progressively assume more responsibility for their learning as they become more proficient in a particular skill or concept. We emphasise this through the use of The Westfield Way in our daily teaching & learning practices. To ensure they build independent skills, students are supported to work independently on extended writing and reading tasks.

Our intent is the Politics curriculum:

• Enables high standards of academic achievement, where outcomes empower students to progress in Politics.
• Foster a love for the subject so that students feel empowered to continue their studies in the subject area to higher education.
• Delivers opportunities for students to learn to be successful, to gain useful, cross-curricular skills whilst also acquiring relevant knowledge. 
• Expands students' perspectives through a range of spiritual, moral, social and cultural opportunities to promote their sense of moral and social responsibility.
• Ensures that all students are able to thrive and develop as good citizens.
• Provides an appropriate range of opportunities and experiences to inspire students to succeed in the next stage in their Politics education. 
• Allows students opportunities to explore and experience how politics works in the UK and raise the cultural capital of students.
• Provides students with opportunities to research, discuss and debate current affairs to develop a deeper understanding of the world around them and transferable skills which students can further develop in higher education.