Curriculum

Context 

As a hospital school we are exempt from teaching the National Curriculum. Instead our statutory guidance 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 

Aims:  

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

2. The curriculum allows pupils to make good progress in a broad range of academic subjects. 

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

4. The curriculum helps pupils to make a successful transition to their next phase of learning either a return back 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.  

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.  

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. 

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 reflection.  

• 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.  

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 that subjects; the vocabulary to be learnt and the curriculum end points. Consideration will be given to assessment as well. The line of sight documents for each subject are included below.