Chapel Green School Curriculum

Challenge Grow Shine

“Our job is not to prepare students for something. Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything.” - A.J.Juliani

Curriculum Rationale

Chapel Green School opened in January 2018 on a beautiful new site, providing us with the space and scope to develop the curriculum in ways not possible on the old site. The move coincided with a new climate of freedom and expectation within the Complex Needs sector, to develop a curriculum that truly meets the needs of students within a school. We developed our curriculum over three years to cater for all ages and abilities of students. During this time, we continued to grow in size. Once we reached 175 students, we decided it was time to move from a small school curriculum to a big school curriculum; ensuring each key stage and route had a specific learning offer alongside bespoke packages. We then transitioned onto a Knowledge and Skills based curriculum system from January 2024. Throughout the school, learning experiences are exciting, relevant and destination- led.

Curriculum Ethos

At Chapel Green school, our ethos is that all students and staff have the right to

Challenge, Grow and Shine

both at school and out in the wider world.

Curriculum Vision

We believe that learning is an adventure, one that is inspirational and creative. We provide a variety of experiences to provide challenge to enable every individual to grow and become the best they can be as they shine in the light of their achievements.

Learning opportunities are child-centred with an emphasis on life skills and preparation for adulthood. We encourage independence and communication giving everyone the opportunity to achieve success.

We foster relationships and work in collaboration to overcome barriers and create a respectful and inclusive community.

We provide a safe environment for all our students to flourish and forge happy, fulfilling, successful lives.

Curriculum Intent

Our curriculum has been developed with a focus on aspirational, destination led learning, preparation for future learning and life beyond school. We want to provide the best possible education for all of our pupils and aim for every child to access a bespoke curriculum that meets their needs and allows them to have fun and develop their communication, independence skills and cultural capital. By making learning irresistible we will ensure that all our pupils learn successfully, resulting in the best possible progress so they are fully prepared to make positive choices for their future.

“Total Communication” underpins all learning; this supports our pupils to become successful and confident communicators and independent learners.

Curriculum Umbrellas

The curriculum has been divided into key umbrella areas:

Literacy & Communication

Maths & Problem Solving

Personal Skills, Physical Development & Health- PE

Personal Skills, Physical Development & Health- PSHE

Environment & Community

Creativity

My Future

Skills & Knowledge Curriculum

The skills are developmental, progressing from pupils working at the very earliest levels of development through to our most able learners. These skills are not age related; one of our younger pupils could have a relatively high skill level and conversely an older students might still be working on some of the earliest skill levels.

The Knowledge by contrast focuses on the key content and context that pupils should be exposed to during the different phases of their education. Appropriate experiences and lesson content for a five year old is very different to what is appropriate at eighteen.

By combining these two strands into their planning, our teachers are able to put together learning experiences that are tailored to the individual needs of every pupil that they teach, in all six phases of education.

Our Core Values

At Chapel Green School, for our pupils, their families and our staff, we value:

Cooperation.
Responsibility
Respect
Resilience
Kindness

Students receive a values certificate each half term for demonstrating the focus value that half term, alongside a value badge to add to their personal lanyard. In the first half of the autumn term, we focus on our pre-value of Transition while students adjust to their new class, peers or staff.

Our Learning Routes

Over the past few years, our pupils have become ever more diverse and complex. After an initial assessment period, we place the pupils into one of 4 Learning Routes: Pre-formal, Pre-formal Plus, Semi-formal and Formal, with the formal and semi-formal routes utilising the same approaches but pushing for higher level outcomes for formal students. Our EYFS route spans across the EYFS and KS1 classes and is used before determining which route category each student falls into at the end of KS1. Each learning route has a leader and class staff teams specialising in these areas provide a bespoke package to cater for pupil’s individual strengths, needs and interests. The Route teams meet to develop the learning experiences for pupils within the routes and support the continuing professional development of staff.

Focusing on pupil’s learning styles and needs allows for bespoke provision and the flexibility to place the emphasis on the priority areas for the different routes, for example more traditional Literacy and numeracy skills for the semi-formal pupils and therapeutic approaches for the pre-formal plus and pre-formal. The pace of learning can be adapted for each route to maximise opportunities for learning and engagement.

The Core Curriculum

For all pupils, regardless of learning route or age, the core curriculum comprises: English (including Communication and Literacy), Maths (including problem solving), PSHE (including RSHE) and Physical Development (including PE). These subjects each have a leader (from the leadership team) who develops the strategy and monitors delivery, learning and progress within the subject. The following gives more detail.

Curriculum Policy Overview Document

Accredited courses

Our accreditation offer is through ASDAN and City & Guilds. The ASDAN offer is available for all students Key Stage 4 and onwards. For those assessed as able to, there is an additional Key Stage 3 ASDAN offer and also Functional Skills qualifications through City & Guilds. The Functional Skills offer is currently for literacy and maths skills and we are awaiting an ICT Functional Skills package to be released. For our most able Key Stage 4 and above students, we also offer short courses in skill and interest areas to promote future destinations.

Curriculum Overviews

The curriculum overviews show teachers what to teach each half term. Each half termly focus will be sent home through the class newsletter.

If you would like any additional information about the curriculum coverage for your young person, please email your class team.

Knowledge and Skills Documents

These documents show teachers which age-specific knowledge should be taught at each key stage and which skillset a student is working on. They are divided into the following curriculum umbrellas: