Our curriculum

 

When implementing Hope Corner School’s curriculum, we follow 3 core principles:

 

• Knowledge is revisited in order to enable it to embed and sequenced to build in a structured and logical manner.

• Planning will support the specific outcomes for each of our learners.

• The curriculum supports development of skills that enable students to manage the social and emotional aspects of learning. This underpins all teaching and learning at Hope Corner School. 

 

The curriculum intent and the needs of our students are carefully considered alongside the requirements of each student’s Education Health Care Plan to ensure all objectives are met.  With this in mind, the school provides additional support to each student in terms of therapy so that each student has opportunities to increase their self-confidence, improve communication and relationships and become the person they can be.  Students who are placed at Hope Corner often, for a variety of reasons, have gaps in their learning, have been disengaged from education, or have only experienced a narrow/limited curriculum for long periods of time.

 

Our curriculum has been developed to meet all of the above needs of the students.  This gives them breadth and depth in the opportunities and knowledge they can acquire.  Staff continuously support students in the social and emotional development, so they are fully equipped to access the full curriculum.

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Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning 

We believe it is important for our students to be developing their resilience, emotional wellbeing and communication skills in everything they are doing at Hope Corner School.  That is why we ensure all of our staff are mindful of the individual needs of each student and know the areas students need support in.  

 

Core Subject Teaching

Maths and English are foundational to all learning. When students begin to attend Hope Corner, we carry out initial assessments with them to help us understand their current working levels and identify gaps in their learning.

 

Spelling and reading are essential to our students and are promoted across the curriculum. 

 

Theme Based Teaching

In order to enable the development of cultural capitol, it is important for students to access a broad curriculum. As many of our students have not accessed a range of subjects for long periods of time, there will be many gaps in learning and the possibility of students feeling anxiety around certain subjects. 

 

We therefore deliver our Art, History, Geography and STEM through a theme-based approach.   This enables learners to make cross-curricular links and gain knowledge from different subject perspectives. Knowledge and skills are sequenced within each subject to enable learners to deepen and build upon the skills embedded in previous themes.  Underpinning the themes is the value-based approach.

 

Experiential Learning

Students learn in many different ways.  One of the most valuable is through experiences outside the classroom.  We build opportunities for this through a range of activities offered during the school year.

 

Educational Visits

Each term we include at least one educational visit.  This is planned to be a key part of the theme and consolidates and brings their learning to life

 

Personal Development

We have a strong emphasis on Personal Development in Hope Corner School.  Recognising how important it is for our students to become independent, positive citizens, our Personal Development curriculum includes the skills they need to achieve this.  Knowledge and skills cover the areas of, citizenship, beliefs and values, independent living and social and emotional development.

 

Personal Development is taught through specific timetabled lessons along with many skills being threaded through the curriculum. 

 

In order to enrich our personal development, we link to, or use resources from many local, national and international organisations, projects and individuals.  These include Samaritans, Barclays, local council and national government education tools, the wider Hope Corner Church community, and more. Students take part in national initiatives through the year.

 

The Hidden Curriculum​

At Hope Corner School our nurturing, calm and safe environment is key to helping our students succeed in accessing and progressing in their learning.  The environments students have been part of in the past have not enabled our students to overcome the barriers and difficulties they face daily.

 

Every moment students have at Hope Corner is valuable time through the day, whether this is break and lunch times, travelling to out of centre activities or end of day routines.  We utilise these times to support our students in developing effective communication, supporting the people around you with their needs, making sense of world events and news and supporting hobbies and interests.  Staff are with our students throughout the day and enable all of these activities to take place.  

 

During break times staff run activities such as board games, puzzles, informal news discussions and many similar activities that give students opportunities to communicate and make sense of the world in a relaxed and low demand way.  Lunch is eaten together with staff and students, which many students comment on being one of the highlights of their day.  This gives opportunity for the school to share about their learning and build a positive community in the school.  Staff also go for walks in the local community with students and help students to understand that getting fresh air and moving around can give us energy to enable concentration in lesson time.

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