Curriculum Overview

Our vision for our curriculum
At Park Aspire we want our pupils to have big ambitions and high expectations of themselves. We are an outward looking school, with a strong sense of community and we aim to create a curriculum that is specifically developed to meet the needs of our pupils.

It’s our pupils’ voices that we want to drive and shape that curriculum; an exciting, broad and balanced curriculum that has been developed in order to allow for the flexibility and personalisation required to respond to the individual needs of each pupil. Our curriculum will enable pupils to share ideas, express their opinions and apply knowledge and skills learned in a wide range of meaningful contexts. It will offer opportunities for all pupils to investigate, question, debate, challenge and reflect.

All curricular areas aim to support our pupils’ Social Emotional & Mental Health and communication and interaction needs by providing learning opportunities in which they can develop social skills, self-control, self-awareness and skills for learning through highly engaging, creative, and knowledge-rich content. We keep the core group of subjects; English, Mathematics, Science and Personal Development at the heart of the curriculum. This is further supplemented with our wider curriculum offerings, such as the Park Alternative Curriculum Scheme (PACS) for KS2 and CALM (Cooking, Adventure, Leisure & Mindfulness) for KS3, considering pupils wants, needs and abilities.

We believe that every pupil is unique and valued. We aim to develop a deep sense of selfworth, independence and ambition in all our pupils; in line with our ethos that every pupil can ‘be the best they can be’, but most of all, be themselves. The curriculum will provide support for each individual pupil to develop socially, emotionally, physically, and academically, at a pace that enables them to flourish.

Along with high academic standards, Park Aspire places great emphasis on nurturing kind, respectful and honest citizens. These qualities are reflected across our school. We encourage pupils to take responsibility for their actions and to work collaboratively as part of our whole school community.

It is important that our pupils are equipped with the necessary skills for the fast-changing world in which we live. This means that they need to be adaptable, able to apply their learning in a wide range of contexts and develop strategies for what to do when they’re unsure. We want our pupils to be active learners, questioning, investigating, challenging themselves and sharing responsibility for driving their own learning. Above all, we want our pupils to give their very best and to be proud of all their achievements.

Primary Curriculum
Our wider Primary Curriculum is organised into discrete subject specific work taught as ‘stand-alone’ units of learning and ‘cross-curricular’ or ‘topic’ learning, where meaningful links can be made with other subjects to help secure prior learning or develop learning further.

All ‘units’ of learning have an entry based ‘hook’ to excite and engage pupils and a ‘purpose’ for study, so that learning is meaningful and relevant for them. Where possible, learning will be supported with enrichment activities, experiential learning, visits, workshops, role-play and practical resources.

To support the implementation of our vision we will create:

• Exciting and challenging opportunities to promote our pupils personal development and understanding of their own emotional and physical wellbeing.
• An ethos where all pupils are encouraged and supported, and challenge is embraced.
• A culture of working independently and collaboratively, where we see getting something wrong as part of learning how to get it right.
• A stimulating, safe, environment for developing inquisitive, independent and resilient lifelong learners who work hard and strive for excellence.

Key Stage 3 Curriculum
Our Key Stage 3 Curriculum is seen as a stepping-stone to our pupils’ ambitions and not a destination. We prioritise Pastoral and Academic progress equally with a diverse broad, balanced and engaging curriculum. Our Key Stage 3 pupils, like our primary pupils, have been on a unique educational journey. We are committed to returning our pupils to mainstream school, moving them onto specialist provision or equipping them for a positive transition into Key Stage 4. Pupils in Key Stage 3 are with us for varying lengths of time, because of this our curriculum offer is flexible, personalised and designed to allow pupils to progress to the next stage of their educational journey. Our Key Stage 3 curriculum is designed to;

• Engage all pupils in learning.
• Enable all pupils to make progress from their individual starting points, and to have successes in learning.
• Focus on developing pupil’s social, emotional and mental health.
• Focus on depth before breadth: having a strong curriculum focus on the facilitating subjects of English, Mathematics, Science and Personal Development.
• Allow pupils to explore subjects beyond the core curriculum that reflect the local context and prepares students to be successful within society.
• Support all pupils to make healthy and safe choices.
• Support all pupils to develop the skills, behaviours and attitudes that will enable them to reintegrate into, and be successful in, the next phase of their education.

Implementation
How will we achieve this?

Everything we do at Park Aspire is in the best interests of the children, first and foremost.

At Park Aspire we follow a PACE curriculum model; Personalised, Aspirational, Caring and Engaging.

Engagement in learning is a priority on pupil’s arrival at Park Aspire. On arrival we gather up to date interests, perceptions of learning, pupil voice and potential barriers to learning. This is further supplemented with conversations with the pupils themselves, parents, carers and support workers. This provides us with an indication of current academic stages, pastoral welfare, as well as other screening results, such as those linked to attention, communication speech and language.

Within the first six weeks of their time at Park Aspire, we also carry out a range of profiling with our pupils. This is through our commissioned Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Therapist and baseline assessments conducted in school. This helps inform planning through using individual Personalised Learning Plans and enable us to guide pupils towards an appropriately levelled curriculum.

Impact
The impact of this is:

• Our pupils are engaged, enthused and excited by their curriculum.
• Pupils make appropriate academic and pastoral progress based on need.
• Promote pupils’ Social, Emotional & Mental-Health needs.
• Their levels of independence and confidence are improved.
• They have had experience of a range of curriculum subjects, so they are informed and prepared to transition to Key Stage 3 or equipped with the skillset for Key Stage 4.
• Our staff are on the journey with the pupils and are developing their subject knowledge and professional skills.
• Assessment of the pupils is timely and accurate and allows progress to be made by all.