All pupils at Frederick Gough are placed on a curriculum pathway that best meets their needs with regard to their ability and aspirations. The curriculum offered aims to enable all young people to become:

• Successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
• Confident individuals who are able to lead safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
• Responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society

We are committed to the Every Child Matters agenda which was introduced by the Children Act in 2004. This states that every child, whatever their background or circumstances should have support to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being.

We have made Every Child Matters integral to our curriculum and is built into every aspect of school life. This includes discrete lessons in the statutory subjects in key stage 3 (Years 7, 8 & 9) and key stage 4 (Years 10 & 11). We also place much importance on out of school learning through events such as Challenge Days, sports days, drama productions, music concerts and International visits that are all linked to our curriculum.

We encourage all pupils to aim high and strive to achieve their best. Employers tell us that when they look to appoint young adults they focus on those that have achieved 5 or more A*-C GCSE or equivalent grades, including English and maths. We invite these employers into school to talk with our students about the skills and qualities that will they look for when appointing candidates to jobs in their businesses. In school we refer to these as 'employability skills and qualities' and we provide opportunities throughout our 'Optimum' curriculum for students to experience and apply them.

Optimum is a Latin word meaning 'to be the best' and we have identified the following as our key Employability skills:

• Effective participators (eg communicate clearly, present to an audience)
• Independent enquirers (eg able to research, make decisions)
• Creative thinkers (eg take the initiative, be solution-focused)
• Reflective learners (eg be independent, adaptable, learn from actions)
• Team workers (eg show leadership, a team player)
• Self-managers (eg be responsible, manage change positively)

The 'Optimum' curriculum encourages students to reflect on their own employability qualities and show evidence of when they have been hard-working, willing to learn, reliable, trustworthy, adaptable and motivated.

All students are expected to set themselves three challenges for the academic year. By 'challenges' we mean activities which:

"Stretch your ability and determination and/or show that you can deal with a demanding situation successfully"

They should be memorable or life-changing experiences which possibly take students out of their comfort zone and definitely have a positive outcome. Two challenges are personal to the student but the other aims to make a positive difference to someone else's life. We refer to this as a community challenge.

Staff and students have developed the School's "Learning Statement" which identifies the key elements of the learning process and encourages all students to take responsibility for their own learning. The statement begins with the following quote ...

"The top ten jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn't exist in 2004. We are learning to prepare ourselves for jobs that don't yet exist"

...and so our curriculum aims to create strong learners that are able to adapt and cope with such rapidly changing situations in today's global economy.