Cultural Capital

What is Cultural Capital at Highcrest?

“It is the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said, and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.” Ofsted, Gov.uk, 2019, p10

Cultural capital is defined as the gathering of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a student can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence. It equips a student with the tools to be successful in society, their career and the working world. Whilst at Highcrest, our students build their aspirations and are exposed to a range of experiences to empower them to achieve goals and become successful.

We recognise that for students to aspire and achieve academically, and in the wider areas of their lives, they need to be given rich and targeted opportunities to develop their cultural and social capital. We do this in many ways, for example, through our curriculum, extra-curricular clubs, enrichment trips and visits and our careers programme.

We recognise that there are six key areas of development that contribute to building a student’s cultural capital: personal development, social development, physical development, spiritual development, moral development and cultural development.

Nothing can be more important for our students' education than ensuring they are supported to be the best they can be within our ever-changing, diverse society that ensures everyone has an equal opportunity to aspire and achieve.

What does Cultural Capital look like at Highcrest?

How do we thread it through all areas of academy life?

Life Experiences Survey

To help us with this, when the students join Highcrest in Year 7, they complete a Life Experiences survey. We use this information to design a truly personalised enrichment programme that targets giving opportunities to meet need. Our curriculum enrichment offer is also adapted annually to meet the needs identified within the year group survey.

The survey includes questions such as:

Have you ever been to the theatre?
Have you ever been climbing or abseiling?
Have you ever been abroad?
Have you ever been to a zoo?