At Rushey Mead Academy, we believe that all children are capable of remarkable things, and we serve our community to ensure that we support our children to achieve the very best they can. We are fiercely ambitious for each and every one of our students. Being firmly rooted in our community, we benefit from the support of our families. They trust us to provide their children with the best possible education, knowing that their children will be supported, challenged and cherished.

Our overarching aim as a school is to ensure that ‘every member of the Rushey family, staff and students, is noticed, appreciated, and supported to succeed and have a true sense of belonging’.

We believe in an academic curriculum for our students, complemented by a wider curriculum offer that is rich and fulfilling, all underpinned by our values: Be Kind, Work Hard, Develop your Whole Self. We call these values our Rushey 1-2-3 expectations; they provide a framework for personal conduct and character development for our entire school community. From the moment a student arrives at Rushey Mead Academy we ask them to live and breathe these expectations, so that they permeate all we do:

1 Be kind – We aim to develop respectful, accepting students who are kind to everyone. We intentionally make this our first value as we believe that it is the most important quality that members of our school community can demonstrate.

2 Work hard – We promote resilience, perseverance and determination as qualities to be admired and rewarded at school, as they will be in life. We expect our students to respond to feedback, improve, and to never give up. Our students learn that success needs hard work and effort and we actively teach them the necessary skills and attributes to achieve this success.

3 Develop your whole self – We expect all our students to achieve more than just academic excellence. We encourage students to develop themselves through our extra-curricular provision, so that they leave Rushey Mead Academy as well-rounded citizens with a broad range of experiences and interests. We want them to develop their leadership skills, sporting talent, musical and dramatic ability. We expect them to raise money or provide service to charities, and to challenge themselves to try something new and unfamiliar. All the experiences aim to develop a whole range of skills, helping our children thrive as citizens in the wider world.

We take pride in our challenging and well-designed curriculum. At its core is our belief that all our students are entitled to access the best which has been thought, said, written and created in every field of human endeavour. This ensures that our young people receive a broad, rich and meaningful education. Uniquely, each student studies a foreign language and religious education to GCSE level, as we believe they contribute to developing well rounded, knowledgeable young people, alongside other core subjects, with sport, music, and the arts all being equally highly valued. This can be seen in the range of sporting clubs and achievements each year, our high-quality drama and dance productions. All of this allows our students to leave us as well rounded, happy young people, ready for success in the next phase of their lives.

Our wider curriculum offer, delivered through our tutor time and assembly curriculum, equips our young people with the knowledge and skills to understand the wider world and the world of work, to develop effective learning habits, and to consider and explore important sensitive and relevant topics in a structured and safe environment. This is further enhanced by a wealth of extra-curricular clubs, trips, experiences and opportunities across every year group that enrich, empower and enhance the learning experience and character development of our students.

Students’ safety and wellbeing is of paramount importance, so we seek to make sure that they all are able to thrive, are protected from harm, and are well-equipped to make informed choices. Our excellent pastoral support system, rooted in our Team Around the Year Group model, ensures that students are helped to do their best and are happy in school, so that no child goes without the support they need. Likewise, our behaviour curriculum, which students learn through our Kickstart Programme, enables all members of our school community to understand the how and why of the Rushey Way, so that they feel empowered to be successful. Through our steadfast commitment to social mobility, high expectations and culture of inclusivity, all of our students, irrespective or background or circumstance, feel safe, nurtured, supported and able to succeed as part of the Rushey Family.

We are tremendously proud of our young people. As Rushey students, there is nothing they cannot achieve.