Our ethos is based around our six Key Character Virtues: Ambition, Compassion, Courage, Open-Mindedness, Resilience and Duty. We encourage our young people to incorporate these values into their daily lives, and we have an extensive rewards programme to recognise pupils for exemplifying these virtues by going ‘above and beyond’.
Ossett Academy is a dynamic community that promotes enjoyment in learning and extensive opportunities for young people in a warm and friendly environment. Our pupils consistently achieve positive outcomes in both their GCSE and A Level studies. This academic excellence does not happen by accident; it is as a result of the highest expectations of all our pupils, students and staff. We work in partnership with pupils and parents/carers to ensure the very best academic achievements for all. We encourage pupils to have a love for learning. We believe we provide them with the right skills, aptitudes and an appetite for learning that will last for a lifetime.
We promote a safe and caring environment where pupils look after one another. This is done through the creation of a very positive ethos. Pupils and staff enjoy positive working relationships in a happy environment. We have a very supportive team of staff whose role is to ensure the welfare of our pupils, including Form Tutors, Pastoral Year Leaders, Learning Mentors, Safeguarding and Wellbeing colleagues, and other specialist staff. We have an excellent track record of supporting pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and employ a number of support staff who have undertaken training in a variety of areas of learning support. We have a number of break out rooms that can be used for a variety of interventions and support with pupils.
Many parents state their reason for choosing Ossett Academy for their children is the high standards of behaviour that are expected of all of our pupils. We call this ‘Standards for Success’. We have firm but fair policies and procedures to ensure that all of our pupils behave in a respectful and tolerant way, to staff, other pupils and members of the local community. Visitors constantly comment on the fantastic way that pupils conduct themselves around the building and we always receive excellent feedback from trip facilitators when our pupils are out on educational visits.
We are known regionally for our excellent careers provision for all; we have a full-time Careers Advisor who works with our pupils from Year 7 onwards to ensure that they have high aspirations throughout their academy career, at post 16 and beyond.
We provide one to one discussions, assemblies, careers fairs and have outside speakers who focus pupils on the world of work, all aiming to engage our young people in their chosen career paths. Our track record of students obtaining employment and training is the highest within the Wakefield Authority and a large number of our students go on to their first choice university.
The opportunities are not only in the curriculum; we provide a very wide range of experiences in the arts, sport and through exciting educational visits.
We believe that a busy pupil is a successful pupil and to support this, offer a large number of extra-curricular activities, both at lunchtime and after academy lessons. These are wide-ranging and include Sports, Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Photography, IT clubs, Film clubs and many others.
We also have a fully stocked Learning Resource Centre which has books, reference materials and a number of computers for pupils to use to support their learning. We also operate a number of educational visits throughout the year, including residential trips abroad, to widen the pupil experience and develop their cultural awareness.
Pupils excel at Ossett Academy because we get them to believe in themselves. This encourages all pupils to realise their potential and achieve to the best of their ability. We also believe in promoting self-confidence to give young people the courage to accept new challenges. Finally, we constantly aim to develop self-aware and tolerant young people who will be responsible members of the local, national and international communities with a desire to promote equality and respect for other people and their environments.
