A Guide to Curriculum

The intention of our curriculum at Lexden Springs Residential Special School is to give pupils the skills they need to reach their full potential in adulthood. With this in mind, we have developed a curriculum that is laid out in five areas.

Each area has an Aspirational Goal, derived in consultation with teachers.  These are:

• Exploration and Discovery – To have an inquiring mind and problem-solving skills
• Me and My Community – To have an understanding of community and find ways to contribute.
• Creative Development – To use creative skills and concepts to explore the environment.
• Physical and self-help – To have and maintain physical skills to be applied in all areas of life.
• Communication and Social Interaction – To have an effective means of communicating for both functional and social purposes in all environments.

Each area will have a set of suggested targets that will help guide the skills development.  This is laid out in five levels which allows teachers to level the pupils and to use the suggested targets to inform individual pupil need in order to progress. Skills can be and should be broken down to be more meaningful to the individual in the EHCP process if they are identified as needing specific focus.

Implementation is through the planning for skills progression targets and EHCP outcomes by using our medium-term template.  Activities and experience in the classroom will be the vehicle to practising skills.

There is a topic grid in place for each Key Stage that clearly lays out what should be taught from the schemes of work and when.  The schemes of work are written to show progression of experience as pupils go through the Key Stages in each curriculum area.

The Teachers role in planning is to use the EHCP and progression targets to be a focus for skills learning and to use the ideas from the schemes of work to create a purposeful set of activities that allow pupils’ individual needs to be met –  so progress can be made.  The activities must be adapted and supported to be meaningful and purposeful for the class.

Activities such as TAC PAC, What’s in the Box?, Soft play etc. will be included in the planning where appropriate and the learning intentions from these are clearly documented and monitored.

Not all of the targets from the progression document linked to the curriculum areas will be used in the EHCP but will be marked off for the individual as they progress through the document at their own pace.  Progression grid documents have been developed with reference to EYFS, pre Key Stage standards and the SCERTs documents primarily, but other documents have been researched and considered in the development process.

Measuring the impact of the planning and teaching by assessing the levels of the pupils against the progression targets allows us to see value added as they go through the school.  We also make regular assessments on the pupils individual EHCP targets using the schools Assessment Guidance Grid.

At post 19 we trace pupils for 3 years after leaving school so we can see the impact of the learning at school and how that develops once they leave school, successfully transitioning on to other services.