Curriculum Overview

Intent

 At Hawthorns, we believe that all pupils are entitled to a broad, balanced, relevant and appropriate curriculum and our curriculum is designed to enable us to support our pupils to overcome their personal barriers to learning.

We are on a continual journey to ensure our curriculum meets the complex needs of all our learners and addresses the holistic needs of every individual as outlined in their Education Health and Care Plan.

Within all Pathways, the overall intent is to provide a motivating and engaging context for learning in which pupils can achieve and make progress in relation to their starting points in a personalised way.

For all pupils, the curriculum intent is for them to achieve their full potential, gaining the skills and knowledge that will enable them to have the greatest level of independence to lead an enjoyable and fulfilling life.

Our curriculum intent matches our MAT’s Destinations Matrix which focus’ on the key principles of learning of knowledge, wellbeing, independence and communication.  There is a clear link between EHCP outcomes and the seven destinations at the end of key stage 1 and key stage 2. 

Our curriculum intent supports the development of the key skills required for children to be involved/take part/take control and play a part in the community, leading to secondary education where children may volunteer and work in the community.

Implementation

Our Curriculum Journey

Where we were:

Our cohort has changed significantly over the past 6 years at Hawthorns. We were historically designated as a Moderate Needs school where pupil’s priority area of need was typically Cognition and Learning. 

The curriculum was predominantly P Levels leading on to National Curriculum for those pupils it was appropriate for. The pupils on the whole were homogenous and in turn, so was the curriculum offer.

The Continuous Professional Development (CPD) offer had a real focus on academic areas and how to adapt or break things down to differentiate for pupil’s levels.

Hawthorns has always been a responsive school, and this id needed more than ever to continue to offer an outstanding curriculum for our changing demographic.

In 2019 we had 2 groups, 9 pupils in total, for whom the current curriculum offer was not developmentally appropriate. This is where the ‘revamping’ of the school’s curriculum began.

As a school we took a strategic approach to implementation.  Using the Explore, Plan, Deliver and Sustain model, we were able to map the actions we would take to ensure our curriculum intent remained true for all pupil’s and the curriculum offer was meaningful and purposeful to all.

Explore: Key staff liaised with other SEND settings and experts to look into what was appropriate for these pupils. Staff researched a number of models and approaches and identified SCERTS (Social Communication, Emotional Regulation and Transactional Supports) as best practice and attended the 2-day training.

Plan: Following the training, staff identified a pilot group to roll out the SCERTS model.  Staff also looked at what expertise and curriculum they already had in place that were valuable and ‘fit’ within the principles of SCERTS. Staff met regularly to discuss and reflect on the implementation.  All staff were confident that SCERTS would have a positive impact on the alternative curriculum.  The key staff took the findings from the pilot group and used this to ‘launch’ SCERTS across the (by this point) 4 classes. This secured staff buy in.

Deliver: Over a 12 month period staff worked to fully embed the SCERTS model, and also build a wider curriculum that was robust , meaningful and purposeful that was bespoke to the needs of our complex learners. There was a huge cultural shift for the school, and staff, in how we supported our complex needs pupils and what the priorities for learning were.

Sustain: The growth was rapid in the pathway , but having been part of a successful implementation plan, staff were able to draw on the process to continue to roll out the offer.  After the success of the implementation strategy and now sustained changes to the curriculum offer, the same process was used to scale the changes across school. 

Where we are now?

Coming into the academic year 2023-24, there are 13 classes; 117 pupils, in the Connections pathway which originally had the 9 pupils in 2019, this is now the largest pathway in school and continues to be the fastest growing.  The SCERTS model is well established as the overarching ethos and there are close links with the authors to ensure we stay true to the principles.

There are 3 core principles at the heart of SCERTS; Fostering Independence, Fostering Communication and Social Connectedness , and Fostering Emotional Regulation.  As the growth has continued, the pathway has been divided into two priority areas of need; Connecting with the social world and Connecting with learning. 

The curriculums set within the connection’s pathway are frequently revisited and the offer broadened and refined inline with new research. You can read more about how our curriculums at Hawthorns meet the needs of our Connections Pathway pupils here: Connections Pathway Information Booklet  - Pathway Rationales for Learning through Topics. 

A further cohort has also been identified as a changing demographic, this group now makes up our Enrichment Pathway for pupils with Severe Learning Difficulties. Through scaling, we were able to cycle back through the explore, plan and deliver phases to establish the pathway rationale and clearly identify what the curriculum would look like for pupils in our Enrichment Pathway. You can read more about how our curriculum at Hawthorns meets the needs of our Enrichment Pathway pupils here.

Enrichment Pathway Information Booklet  - Pathway Rationales for Learning through Topics

Our historical cohort, now our First Steps and Aspire Pathways, have also been revisited through the cycle. We have been able to ensure we have a robust, connected and holistic curriculum that looks beyond Cognition and Learning to ensure we are developing all four areas identified in children’s EHCPs.  These pathways now too have identified curriculum areas linked to the EHCP areas. You can read more about how our curriculum at Hawthorns meets the needs of our First Steps and Aspire Pathway pupils here.

First Steps Pathway Information Booklet - Pathway Rationales for Learning through Topics.

Aspire Pathway Information Booklet - Pathway Rationales for Learning through Topics.

Through the explore process, SEE-KS (Social, Emotional, Engagement Knowledge and Skills ) model was identified as the over-arching ethos that will be embedded into the Enrichment, First Steps and Aspire Pathways.  SEE-KS has 3 core principles at it’s heart; Fostering Investment, Promoting Independence and Celebrating Initiation.  This model is now established across these pathways, and the three I’s at the heart of all learning. You can read more about the SEE-KS model here: SEE-KS

Staff CPD has been a real focus during the process and played a huge part in the sustainability of the curriculum changes.  We have worked hard to establish authentic buy in from key stakeholders to support the implementation process, and committed to this as a school by ensuring high quality, relevant CPD for all staff. 

We have made ‘embedment’ a priority and allocated time across the school calendar for staff to be able to embed new approaches and monitor the impacts with support from colleagues and senior leaders through appreciative enquiry. A bespoke and sequential CPD offer for staff across pathways has been put into place:

You can read our individual subject rationales here: Hawthorns School - Curriculum Subject Areas

Where Next?

As new research develops, the growth of our school continues and the changes to everyday life evolve, we are on a continuous journey of curriculum development.  We are committed to staying up to date with key research and evidence-based practices to guide our offer to enable us to always have a meaningful and purposeful curriculum for all of our learners.

Some key focuses for the academic year 24/25 are:

- Hosting Emily Rubin (author of SCERTS and SEE-KS) for a two-day event and completing follow up coaching with her within school.
- Increasing parent involvement in shared learning through parent CPD and using Evidence For Learning as a key tool to share good practise.
- Developing a meaningful way to capture pupil voice.

Impact

The impact of the curriculum, interventions and strategies are measured through ongoing assessment and target setting and through our ongoing monitoring and evaluation processes.

• We use Evidence for Learning as our assessment system to evidence, assess, review and plan for meeting the unique needs of our SEND learners linked to pupil’s PLP’s and our key skills frameworks.
• EfL enables us to have deep dives into any aspects and areas of our school’s curriculum, allowing us to measure the impact of the curriculum and see how individual learners are experiencing our curriculum and how teaching is being personalised to support that learner’s needs.  It enables us to develop and demonstrate connected practice which links curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.  You can read our Assessment and Marking Policy here.
• Personalised Learning Plans: Are produced termly and map out children’s targets in line with their EHCP outcomes and how the development of these skills will be facilitated by transactional supports and a carefully matched provision and curriculum.
• Early Years Foundation stage: Reception children are baselined and tracked throughout the year and termly to assess them alongside the Early Years Foundation Stage month bands. At the end of the EYFS, staff complete the EYFS profile for each child.
• Observations of teaching and learning through the use of appreciative enquiry.
• Termly Medium-Term Planning reflections.
• Termly evidence reflections.
• Analysis of termly data to inform practise and identify pupils for pupil progress reviews.
• The annual review processes.

If you would like to find out more information about our curriculum or a particular pathway, please contact us by email or call 0161 370 1312.