Dan Y Coed Curriculum
In Dan Y Coed school, we follow a skills-based curriculum, focused on the individual needs of each pupil. We use the Autism Progression Framework for specific areas of need such as sensory processing, managing emotions and relationships, coping with change, independence in life skills, motivation and engagement in learning and accessing the community. Both our staff and our families feel that these skills are very important to enable our young people to thrive in adult life.
Learning is delivered through topics and projects, which are chosen by pupil voice to ensure that students are engaged and invested in their own learning.
Our curriculum covers:
Health & Wellbeing
We want to give our students the skills to build healthy relationships. Playing is a hugely important part of everyone’s life. It is, simply, fun. But actually, play is how people, and especially children, are designed to learn and interact. We learn best when we are enjoying ourselves. We promote play through a range of activities, both on and off-site, including a whole school Attention Engagement programme and an Intensive Interaction approach used to build the necessary social and communication skills to enjoy sharing experiences with others.
Essential Skills
This includes numeracy, digital competency, reading, writing and communication goals. We want our students to use these skills effectively in different contexts and in their day to day lives. We teach these skills across all our curriculum. Additionally, students may have personalised interventions such as Makaton, PECS, TalkAbout and ReadWrite Inc.
Learning Outside The Classroom (LOTC)
At Dan y Coed our ASPIRE strand of the curriculum has been designed to develop students’ skills to be positive, contributing citizens within their community in school and beyond. In September 2022 we embarked on our journey with the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (CLOtC) to further develop and embed meaningful and purposeful opportunities throughout our curriculum and work towards a recognised accreditation with the CLOtC.
Along our journey we have welcomed visitors to the school to give talks to our students including local coastguard volunteers and the Gower Seal Group. In addition, students across the school enjoy accessing a wide range of venues such as St Fagan’s and the Gower Heritage Centre increasing their understanding of their local and Welsh heritage. Developing partnerships with local businesses including Biophilic Wales, Many Tears and The Bay Clothing Ltd at Summit Good has enabled our young people to engage in a range of Work Experiences whilst broadening their horizons and interests providing an understanding of how they fit into the world around them and the impact that they have on the natural world.
