Curriculum organisation
At Seven Hills School we aim to promote curiosity and enthusiasm in our students, encourage them to become independent learners and to develop their confidence for life beyond school and in preparation for adult life in the 21st century. The vision for our school’s curriculum is to provide a fully inclusive curriculum that gives students the opportunity to achieve their full potential by engineering a curriculum that best meets each student’s diverse needs. Students access a broad and balanced education, based on the realities of modern life and delivered in a personalised learning environment. The Curriculum is not solely what we teach, it is how we focus on what is key to the learning needs of each student to enable them to have as rich and fulfilled a life as possible, both now and into the future. We strive to develop learning environments outside the confines of the classroom, promoting learning through positive outdoor experiences and play.
Our Curriculum is built on four foundations; ‘communication, language and literacy’ ‘cognition and learning’, ‘social and emotional’ and ‘physical and sensory’. All foundations are very closely connected, each complimenting and facilitating the development of the other. All students have independent learning priorities linked to these four foundations.
The implementation of the curriculum is made accessible and appropriate by clearly identifying a student’s needs and stage of development, ensuring the learning environment closely matches their needs. Our curriculum runs on three clear curriculum pathways; pathways one, two and three. All curriculum pathways are delivered through a personalised approach built upon our four foundations. Students are assessed before entering the school to determine which pathway would best suit them and to enable individual needs to be met through the inclusive curriculum. Curriculum pathways will allow learning journeys to start from individual pupils’ current strengths and needs. The pathway selected will depend upon the student’s needs and long-term goals. We avoid rigid placement within a pathway and movement between pathways is possible following a re-evaluation of a student’s needs and progress.
We use the whole range of curriculum subjects to provide breadth of experience and opportunity. These experiences act as vehicles and are delivered through a personalised approach focused on individual outcomes. This approach maximises engagement in learning, ensures access to learning is personalised and rich and meaningful experiences support individual outcomes. The curriculum is implemented through contextual learning experiences where students are supported to generalise their skills across a range of learning opportunities. Teaching styles and pedagogy vary according the needs of the students, with an emphasis on developing independence across all pathways.
We have high expectations and for our students to match these, they will need to access, interact with and problem solve the world around them. Our curriculum is designed to enable each child, at their own level, to rise to this challenge and celebrate their achievements. Our careful tracking and measurement of the impact of our curriculum on individual progress, evidences the achievements children make, how these reflect our high expectations and how we prepare them for the future. We foster a culture of collaborative assessment that enables staff to maximise pupil progress by purposefully and effectively using data from different strands to inform teaching and learning.
Our school is fortunate to benefit from specialist areas such as a food technology room, hydrotherapy pool, rebound trampoline, soft play, science garden, woodland walk and the rainbow garden.
Educational visits and visiting artists further enrich our curriculum or all pathways. In addition, we plan a ‘Golden Day’ each half term focusing on different curriculum areas such as World Book Day, Celebrating Eid, Queen’s Jubilee, Pet Day In addition to this, the curriculum is further enhanced through the implementation of academic and therapeutic interventions delivered either 1:1 or in small groups.
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Pathway one
This pathway is designed for students that have significant challenges with social communication, emotional regulation and sensory processing. Explicitly underpinned by SCERTS, implementation strategies include: TacPac, Intensive Interaction, Makaton, Attention Autism and curiosity programme, TEACCH
Students on this pathway typically display ‘spikey’ profiles in their development. They are beginning to develop skills, knowledge and understanding in line with subject specific learning, but this may only be in one or two areas. While they may be able to perform above their general level of development and access more subject specific learning they continue to require an environment that is largely based around sensory processing, communication and emotional regulation needs.
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Pathway two
Students follow a sensory curriculum and learn best when it is related to a concrete experience. Students will establish positive relationships with familiar adults, to explore the world around them using their sensory and physical capabilities to the full and to establish behaviours through which they can communicate with other people. Learning will be through structured and semi-structures play; functional and topic based activities.
There will be a strong focus on communication and it is a priority to support and develop students preferred methods of expressive and receptive communication. Implementation strategies will include: AAC, Zones of Regulation, play, intensive interaction, Makaton
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Pathway three
Students following the subject specific pathway access the range of National Curriculum subjects, modified in the light of their developmental level and special educational needs.
From Yr 9 students working within the subject specific curriculum are likely to be entered for Entry Level exams and they follow the appropriate syllabus in each exam subject. AAC will be embedded through their whole day. Many students find generalisation and abstract thinking difficult, students will be offered practical activities to aid learning, presented in multiple ways.
Students are given creative activities and opportunities to develop their cognition and learning skills. Implementation strategies will include: AAC, zones of regulation, Makaton, colourful semantics, Blank Level Questioning, multi sensory learning, aspects of SCERTS