Our Curriculum

At Ivy Lane School we are very aware that the quality and range of educational inputs students receive during their time with us will have significant impacts on the quality of their childhood and their future quality of life.  Our curriculum is driven by the five key principles of:

• Accessibility
• Engagement
• Relevance
• Variety
• Demonstrable progression

We do not apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach to achieving these principles.  We apply a pathway approach.  Our pathways describe the need to consider the individual needs and abilities of each student on admission to school and will determine the aims they should work toward during their education.  All education staff will receive professional development to ensure they are able to deliver each pathway and our ongoing assessment/quality assurance work will continually check if each of the key principles is being achieved for each student. 

Foundation Principles

Accessibility – When planning for learning in the medium and short term, we seek to provide each student with learning in an environment and style which they can access comfortably. Teachers will receive specialist ongoing professional development to ensure they use specialist methodologies including PECS, Makaton, SPELL and ABA to maximise inclusion within every whole class, small group and 1:1 learning opportunity.

Engagement – Given the strongest and most effective learning takes place when students are engaged our teaching team will personalise opportunities to make them individually relevant to students and focus on providing learning opportunities relevant to the strengths and interests of the students within their class.

Relevance – During our initial assessment of a student we will aim to identify their ambitions for leaving school. Within this we will cover: what academic achievements they seek to achieve; what skills they need to live in their preferred community as an adult; their maximum potential relating to communication and sensory needs and the skills they need to maximise their independence and quality of life as adults. With the assessment in place we will then establish the correct pathway, individual learning plan and support required for each student.

Variety – We aim to develop independent learners who respond positively to a range of learning opportunities. Classroom based methods such as ABA, TEACHH and work boxes may be used to build confidence in core skills. Care will be taken to ensure students can apply skills learned in these settings in a range of domestic, community, workplace and learning scenarios. We will seek to maximise our urban location to develop students who are comfortable and confident learning in Wakefield and developing skills which they can continue as adults in numerous locations across the UK.

Demonstrable progression – We seek for our students to leave Aurora Ivy Lane School with a greater range of skills, abilities, interests and confidence than when they join us. Termly progression checks will be used by leadership to assess student progression on both subject specific and non subject specific pathways. Within this, each lesson will contain assessment opportunities during which learning can be reshaped as required to maximise opportunities for progression.

Further details of our curriculum can be found in our curriculum policy within the policies section.