Our curriculum intends to allow our pupils to become confident communicators, to lead as independent lives as possible and to be active, happy, and purposeful members of their community.  Our curriculum is designed to be as personalised as possible and focus on the core skills, knowledge and experiences that allow pupils to fulfil their potential, feel empowered in their communities and confident in their next stage of their lives.

Our school vision underpins the broad and balanced curriculum offer for all pupils at Bishopswood school.  All areas, which include an adapted academic curriculum, communication and a range of therapies and interventions are planned to support pupils to access society, be as independent as possible and be confident communicators.  Clear end goals and milestones are identified for each area and opportunities are provided to develop cultural capital for all.

The curriculum is spiralled so that pupils are building on a (mostly transferrable) knowledge of vocabulary, events, people, places, concepts, and procedures with a keen focus on literacy and numeracy; through knowing more and remembering more, pupils make progress.  Essential skills are explicitly taught and identified in all curriculum areas with staged endpoints for these essential skills.  Pupils benefit from the focused and broad curriculum and allow pupils to work on individualized targets based on EHCP outcomes.  Community links and off-site visits enhance the experiences of our pupils and allow them to apply the skills they have learnt.

For more information see the Curriculum Pathways.

At Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11) individual provision is informed by the recommendations in the transition plan drawn up in Year 9.  For more information see the KS4 Courses.

We set up bespoke transition programmes with Post 16 providers in Year 11, for more information see the Post 16 Provision.

You can find out more about the National curriculum by visiting the Government website
UK Government National Curriculum.  You can read more about the Department for Education's Engagement Model  for assessing pupils who are working below the standard of the national curriculum assessments and who are not engaged in subject specific study at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.