Our Bradstow Curriculum

Curriculum Intent- What we teach

All young people who attend Bradstow School have a range of personalities, interests and needs; our unique curriculum is designed to be responsive to each young person’s individualism whilst preparing and equipping them for their adult life. 

Bradstow School adopts a ‘Culture of Gentleness’ which is focused on establishing and nurturing young people to feel safe with others and build positive relationships which in turn leads to successful experiences and an increased engagement with learning. 

Our curriculum is ambitious and is planned to teach the knowledge and skills to ensure our young people experience and are able to make connections, build healthy interpersonal relationships and are meaningful contributors to our community. 

Opportunities to build cultural capital are embedded into our curriculum offer.  As a Unicef rights respecting school we believe that every child has the right to an education, which develops their personality, talents and abilities to the full (Article 29).

Curriculum Objectives

• To promote healthy interpersonal relationships with others which ensure young people are able to connect with others and experience companionship which is fun, fair and safe
• To engage our learners with a curriculum that is matched to their individual needs and focuses on preparing them for a successful adult life and building of cultural capital
• To embed therapeutic provision throughout the curriculum to ensure that young people have their holistic needs met through our ‘wider curriculum’, this includes a focus on communicative and emotional regulative aspirations for all young people
• To provide a progressive and sequenced curriculum to ensure that young people’s learning is coherently planned for in an individualised manner from their identified starting points
• To provide an accreditation pathway which demonstrates and acknowledges the progress they have made

The curriculum is designed to focus on core functional subjects and is driven by preparing for adulthood outcomes. A ‘wider curriculum’ is also embedded in all learning throughout the 24 curriculum. These subject areas and wider curriculum also compliment individualised outcomes identified in each young person’s EHCP.

The Wider Curriculum

The wider curriculum encompasses embedded learning for all young people to develop cultural capital; this is considered as essential knowledge that our young people need to prepare them for their future success into adult life. The wider curriculum enriches all aspects of a young person’s life and is necessary for a young person to be able to access learning and develop skills and knowledge required to be part of their local communities when leaving Bradstow. It is understood at Bradstow that every moment is a teaching moment; ranging from teaching independent living skills when supporting a young person to put their shoes on, to teaching a young person in the moment to regulate whilst in crisis. These opportunities are embedded in day to day learning and are recognised as paramount to support the young person’s success both in adult life and the curriculum offer at Bradstow.

Functional English and Maths

Fundamental concepts and principles linked to English and Maths are embedded into everyday learning across of a range of contexts (e.g. using money whilst shopping, measurements during cooking sessions, expressive communication through individualised communication systems, reading by using visual schedules and shopping lists etc.). These opportunities and outcomes are identified in daily planning by class teachers and evaluated regularly to inform assessment and next steps for learning.

Communication and Interaction

Therapeutic provision identified by the Speech and Language Therapy team is integrated through the schools total communication approach and individualised to each young person. These learning opportunities occur daily to ensure that functional communication is established for all young people and aspirational outcomes are delivered based in the SCERTS framework. Our goal for the young people is for them to be able to use widely recognised approaches that will ensure they are effective communicators, able to assert their needs, make choices and connect with others when they leave Bradstow.

Emotional Regulation

It is recognised that every young person is on a journey to establishing regulatory strategies to support their understanding and management of their emotions. The Occupational Therapy Team work alongside all staff at Bradstow to deliver high quality provision for young people to be able to regulate their emotions in a way that is safe to themselves and others. The Occupational Therapists use the SCERTS framework to develop strategies that are linked to a young person’s development and occur daily, these often link in with sensory strategies embedded throughout the school day.  Teaching through PSHE and SRE also supports young people to understand their neurodiversity and needs as part of their preparation for adulthood and understanding of respecting others.

Sensory and Physical

All young people at Bradstow require an individualised approach to meet their sensory and physical needs. These opportunities are embedded throughout each young person’s day and include opportunities to complete a range of physical activities to maintain a healthy lifestyle and build gross and fine motor skills. Every young person is assessed to determine a sensory programme which is tailored and built into their ‘flow of the day’ to meet both their sensory and regulatory needs.

Independent Living

Opportunities for independent living occur at all times at Bradstow. We recognise that there are multiple opportunities daily to teach independent living skills both in formally and outside of these times. The wider curriculum identifies times outside of the formal structure of the day when teaching will still occur both during the school day and across the 24 hour curriculum (including opportunities for self-care, eating and drinking, establishing healthy bedtime routines etc.).

In addition to our wider curriculum which is embedded in our day to day learning we have structured teaching and learning to focus on preparing for adulthood.

Our core subjects include:

• English
• Maths
• PHSE

Our other subjects include:

• Employment (which includes work related learning and work experiences)
• Health (which includes PE and physical activity)
• Friends, relationships and community (which includes experiential community based learning, creative arts and religious education)

There are naturally cross curricula links for all subjects to embed, transfer, generalise and apply learning into a range of contexts, environments and opportunities throughout the 24 hour curriculum.

Employment

At Bradstow School we teach specific “employment” sessions weekly and the classes are timetabled time to undertake off-site community projects.

Our young people can experience the following work opportunities:

• Community improvement projects, which include working within our local area (Ellington Park) in partnership with “Friends of Ellington Park”, The Ramsgate Spencer Square group, Tuck by Truck and a range of other local groups throughout the year.

Our young people can experience the following on-site opportunities:

• “Job boxes” – these include job opportunities throughout the school, including domestic jobs.  Students can also become involved cleaning the parents flat and staffing our on-site tuck shop.

For our Employment sessions we use Talentino schemes of work and adapt them to stretch our young people.  We believe that every child should have the opportunity to experience work that is purposeful and gives the young people a sense of achievement and pride.

Curriculum Vision Handbook : updated 19Jan2023.

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