Throughout the school, pupils with SEND, including those in the SEN unit, follow the same curriculum as their peers. Teachers use resources skilfully to adapt their teaching so that these pupils achieve well.
Base curriculum
At Foresters we follow the Cornerstones Curriculum a primary focussed curriculum informed by cognitive science. It is sequenced to support children’s learning over time forming a robust knowledge and skills framework. https://cornerstoneseducation.co.uk/
We encourage a love of learning through the teaching a broad and balanced curriculum which is rich in knowledge and skills. Children progress through the EYFS and National Curriculum at their level and pace.
In Early Years (Peach Class) there is a focus on highly structured activities alongside play. Attention circles develop the early fundamentals of language including awareness of others, attention, listening, shared attention, switching attention and turn-taking. In KS1 the children in Apple class begin their journey with the National Curriculum and this continues in Larch (Lower KS2) and Maple (Upper KS2).
The Base curriculum mirrors the mainstream curriculum following a 2-year cycle, base and mainstream teachers work collaboratively to create medium term plans building on prior knowledge and enabling opportunities for children to join mainstream lessons as appropriate.
We have a robust system for assessing and tracking small steps of academic progress. We use an autism specific program to understand how autism affects each child individually and how to best support each child accordingly.
Each child’s EHCP long term outcomes are used to set challenging short-term targets in partnership with therapists. Therapists work with us to embed approaches, resources and programmes into our curriculum and learning environment so that pupils receive this input all the time from all members of the base team
