Curriculum

Intent

We believe that children learn best when they enjoy and value coming into school to participate in an exciting, practical and relevant learning curriculum. Lessons and activities are planned to give children new experiences and to help them embed learning through hands-on approaches.

The curriculum offer supports the vision of the school “Linking hands to reach every child’s potential” by giving pupils the opportunity to learn and develop with the support of collaborative team practice. All pupils in the school will have an EHCP (Education Health Care Plan) in line with the SEND Regulations of 2014. We offer a lively and vibrant curriculum which studies core discrete subjects as well as cross curricular based topics in conjunction with individual educational outcomes from their EHCP. Our spiral Relationship and Health Education (RHE) Curriculum offers discrete topics which help our pupils develop their social skills and emotional regulation at their appropriate levels. The use of child centred planning from individuals’ EHCP long term outcomes as well as the Link Priority curriculum help us to tailor the goals that we believe will make a difference in our pupils’ achieving their full potential.

Our vision and values underpin all curriculum offers that the pupils have access to and focus upon the values within The Equality Act 2021 to ensure that the curriculum offer gives all pupils the same opportunities to do what they can, giving additional support where necessary to get the same chances as their peers regardless of their age, race, gender, disability or social background.

We aim for:

Barriers to be reduced for individuals in order for them to reach their full potential
Individual pupils’ needs to drive and shape the curriculum
Pupils to be engaged and motivated to learn
Pupils to make excellent progress from their starting points both academically and within the Link Priorities
Pupils to confidently communicate throughout the curriculum
Pupils to learn how to be healthy and safe
Pupils to have opportunities to participate in a range of enrichment activities within and beyond the curriculum.
Pupils to be able to generalise their skills across the curriculum and into daily life- making learning functional and prepare students for their future.

Curriculum Implementation

The heart of our curriculum is based upon a child centred model which is enhanced by the academic curriculum (see the whole school curriculum oval link below).

This is why our curriculum implementation begins with setting short term Individual Education Plan (IEP) outcomes based upon the childrens’ long term Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) outcomes. As a teaching and therapy team IEP outcomes are set and reviewed twice in the year. ECHPs and long term outcomes are reviewed yearly in line with SEND Regulations 2014 to maintain the best possible outcomes and provision for the pupil.

Literacy topics are carefully planned to match the cross curricular theme and to develop language and literacy skills through both fiction and non-fiction materials in discrete lessons as well as incorporated into every lesson.

The use of SOLAR shows the progress that children make in Maths, English, Science and Foundation subjects from a clear baseline.

Other core subjects which are taught discretely include Relationships and Health Education (RHE), ICT and PE.

Our RHE curriculum is designed as a spiral curriculum which sees topics repeated yearly to build upon previous gained knowledge and skills. Areas addressed in the curriculum are in line with the statutory Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and health education at appropriate learning levels for all pupils across the school. (see the RHE section of the whole school topic plan below).

A 3 year rotational topic curriculum has been designed in our EYFS and KS1 provision and in our KS2 classes pupils will receive a 5 year rotation in order to offer a wide and broad balance of topics. The whole curriculum is designed to ensure pupils do not repeat topics within a key stage to maintain engagement whilst building upon skills and knowledge in all areas over their journey through the school.

Teachers and therapists work collaboratively to ensure access to a language enriched curriculum and learning environment so that there is always a focus on overcoming communication barriers within the learning process.

The curriculum is built and adapted to meet the needs of every individual pupil and therefore The Link Priority Curriculum covering the holistic needs of pupils through emotional, social, sensory and Independence skills is firmly embedded into everything that we do.

We also offer a diverse range of activities that incorporate specialist teaching programmes and teaching strategies for bespoke communication, development of theory of mind and building of positive self-esteem, for example Dyslexia Support, Makaton Signing, Picture Augmentative Communication, the Circles Programme, Social Stories, Comic Strip Conversations and “Pictures of Me” Diagnosis support.