Curriculum

Context

As a hospital school our statutory guidance for the curriculum comes from two sources:

DfE (2013) Alternative Provision, Statutory guidance
Department for Education (2013) Ensuring a good education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs

These statutory documents recognise that there is a curricular context for our pupils. Principally that pupils may have had an intermittent educational experience and therefore have learning gaps and fragile schemas. Secondly, pupils need to make at least good progress in a curriculum that is comparable to the ones experienced by their mainstream peers. Thirdly, pupils will have additional special or medical needs which the curriculum will need to address.

Aims:

The curriculum builds hope in individual pupils and in the school community as a whole.

The curriculum allows pupils to make exceptional progress in a range of academic subjects that are aligned with the National Curriculum.

The curriculum allows pupil’s personal development to increase hope. This is given substantial importance.

The curriculum helps pupils to make a successful transition to their next phase of learning either a return to mainstream school or a post-16 destination.

A Hopeful Curriculum

The curriculum builds the positive psychological concept of hope. This concept is drawn upon from the theories of Rick Snyder, Shane Lopez and Dante Dixson. Hope is a specific mode of thinking that has 4 component parts:

Goal Setting – in a space between certainty and impossibility;
Pathways thinking - the journey to complete goals but specifically the ability to navigate obstacles by taking a different direction;
Summoning the mental energy necessary to reach those goals;
Surrounding yourself with cheerleaders who can spur you on.

Academic Curriculum

Pupils at KS3 will have the opportunity to study academic disciplines of Mathematics, English, Science, PSHE, IT, Humanities (History, Geography, RE), Technology, Healthy Lifestyles, Music, Art and a Modern Foreign Language. The curriculum is personalised but all pupils will be working through a logical, sequenced curriculum that has the high order National Curriculum goals as their endpoints.

At KS4 all pupils will study English, Mathematics, Science and PSHE at a level of attainment that is suitable for them and as much of that content as their health will allow. Pupils will then be able to choose from a range of options including areas of aesthetics and arts, IT and computing, vocationally related qualifications, humanities and social sciences, physical education, technology and a Modern Foreign Language. Pupils usually study up to 6/7 subjects in total. Pupils can access the EBacc if required.

The qualification of choice at KS4 is GCSE, however, pupils are also given the opportunity to study qualifications at a lesser level if their health needs demand it. If this occurs, then pupils are given the opportunity to study the subject at GCSE level as well.

A well planned, cumulative, sequential curriculum

Each curriculum area is planned in the following way. A line-of-sight document is produced. This provides a long-term map for the curriculum in that subject area. It identifies the sequence of knowledge to be learnt; the big concepts and skills in those subjects; the vocabulary to be learnt and the curriculum end points. Consideration will be given to assessment as well. The line-of-sight documents and information about each subject area will be found in the sub-sections of this page over the coming months.

Personal Development Curriculum

Pupils will be taught the psychology of hope, mental health and well-being via the WOW (Well – being on Wednesday) Course;
Pupils will be taught social, moral, spiritual and cultural education in a variety of ways including morning tutorials and afternoon personal refection;
Pupils will be taught fundamental British Values;
Pupils will be taught citizenship
Pupils will have the opportunity to broaden their world through a series of planned trips and visits. This enables pupils to have opportunities to experience the world in ways they would not otherwise be able to.