Birchwood School Curriculum
Our engaging skills-based curriculum focuses on the specific needs, strengths and interests of each pupil allowing us to create education pathways that are as unique as the child. We want our children to progress and to thrive as they develop into young people and adults. For this reason we use the Autism Progression Framework for specific areas such as sensory processing, managing emotions and relationships, coping with change, independence and life skills, motivation and engagement in learning and accessing the community.
Learning is delivered through topics and projects chosen by the pupil to ensure that they are motivated, and engaged and invested in their own learning.
Our curriculum covers:
Health and wellbeing
Play is a powerful tool for helping children build healthy relationships. We promote play through a range of activities and have a whole-school attention and engagement approach. Intensive Interaction allows children to build the necessary social and communication skills to enjoy sharing experiences with others.
Children practice how to make positive choices to promote and maintain their own physical and emotional health and wellbeing. They take every opportunity to experience a range of activities in both school and in the community, including swimming, cycling, football, dance, yoga, sensory circuits, massage, meditation, aromatherapy, TACPAC, Sensology, sensory play and more. We offer wellbeing events for children and their parents/carers, allowing them to share the benefits of being healthy together.
Essential Skills
Numeracy, digital competency, reading, writing and communication are all high on the agenda, and give children the opportunity to learn essential skills in a range of different contexts. These skills are taught across all areas of the curriculum. Additionally, learners may have personalised interventions such as Makaton, PECS, TalkAbout and ReadWrite Inc.
Science and Humanities
We want our learners to have a thorough understanding of themselves as well as other people, their locality, of Wales and the world. This area of learning and experience encourages curiosity about the natural and physical worlds, through investigating, understanding and explaining. Pupil-led learning is informed by a choice of projects and we cover a broad range of themes throughout the school year. If the child has a specialist area of interest then all the better! We can use that as the basis for their learning.
Creative
We love it when children are able to show us what they are thinking, bringing their insights and visions to artistic life! Our creative curriculum engages the imaginations as well as the senses, using art, drama, music, dance, film and digital media to communicate, with creativity linked with lots of other subject areas across the curriculum.
Skills for Life and Work
Our younger learners (aged 5-13) start with the foundations for managing school and work expectations and personal independence then, from age 14, pupils are given further opportunities to develop work skills, employment and independent living in preparation for their future pathways as they approach adulthood.
All pupils have access to The Orb: a pioneering work experience initiative which was recently awarded the Careers Wales Quality Mark. The Orb is a charity shop, café, laundry, kitchen and office all rolled into one bright and friendly high street centre. Children are supported to complete an application form and specify their areas of interest, and work to an individualised timetable, building on their skills week by week. They may be greeting and serving customers, making drinks and snacks for busy shoppers, washing, ironing, pricing-up and stocking clothes and other items for sale in the shop, designing window displays and much more. At The Orb we offer a range of ASDAN accreditations that evidence the progress that the pupils make in preparing themselves for the wider world and the world of work.
Our leadership team ensures that we can reflect on how the curriculum needs to be developed, share good practise and make next steps. We continue to involve staff, families and other professionals to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our learners as fully as possible.
