CURRICULUM
Mary Rose Academy promises an innovative, personalised, meaningful and responsive curriculum that is challenging, future-focused and in keeping with the high aspirations of and for each young person, staff member and family. In this way, each member of our community is empowered to flourish.
At Mary Rose, we understand that all children, irrespective of the complexity of their individual needs, have a right to a rich and broad curriculum which is rooted in the National Curriculum and dynamic Accreditation options. For this reason, learning is carefully sequenced from Nursery through to Post-16 to ensure that all pupils are encouraged and challenged to learn within the same ‘future-focused’ context and framework as peers within mainstream schools.
Underpinning our topic based curriculum is an innovative approach, centered around each young person’s Education, Health & Care Plan. Our team crafts a bespoke learning journey, ensuring that all aspects of teaching and learning enable our pupils to flourish as individuals. This is reflective of our their varied and profoundly complex needs which impact their individual starting points and outcomes.
Throughout pupils’ time at Mary Rose, our constant focus remains the preparation of pupils for the next phase of their lives within and beyond school. This can take many forms, relative to individual pupils’ needs, but is always choice-driven and reflective of the strengths and aspirations of each young person.
Primary Phase:
The Primary phase at Mary Rose ensures that each child is provided with a bespoke and highly effective transition into each aspect of school life.
Our intention at this stage is to ensure that each child identifies and begins to establish a meaningful, preferred communication method which will enable them to interact with familiar people in all contexts.
Within Primary, pupils are supported to embed routine and structure within the school environment and beyond, accepting appropriate demands and expectations associated with all aspects of the school day. This includes transition, tolerance of a range of adults and peers, the ability to share space and an early awareness of how to remain safe and engaged in a range of contexts.
This is achieved via our highly personalised, active and broad curriculum offer where meaningful, real-world learning sits alongside an engaging, age-appropriate curriculum for each child. As in other phases, each child receives an entirely personalised curriculum offer which is rooted in the National Curriculum alongside all aspects of their Education, Health & Care Plan, including wider therapeutic needs which are catered for throughout the school day, embedded seamlessly into each learning activity. Over the course of their Primary journey, each pupil will develop the skills needed to access the next stage of their education within Secondary, maximising opportunities for independence, self/supported regulation and meaningful communication.
Secondary Phase:
Having begun to establish key communication, routines and tolerance of expectation in Primary, within Secondary pupils are encouraged to embed these skills and to achieve greater independence, appropriate to need, in maintaining prior learning and developing further in all aspects of their lives.
When planning for Secondary, ‘real world learning’ is embedded within topics, promoting a balance between new experiences, increased pupil choice and exposure to a wide range of opportunities which hold value for ‘Life Beyond Mary Rose’. This encompasses all aspects of life, from age-appropriate topics and the Options programme; to increased expectations surrounding awareness of and engagement with personal care, hygiene, safety and regulation.
A future-focused curriculum offer, emphasising and rooted in the Preparation for Adulthood EHCP framework, is adopted throughout Secondary to ensure that each child is given maximum opportunity to develop key life and independence skills throughout the phase, preparing them consistently for the next steps in their life within and beyond school. Each pupil is supported to access appropriate, meaningful accreditation which best suits their individual needs and goals. The accreditation offer is adapted to the strengths and needs of each child on a pupil by pupil basis.
As in all phases at Mary Rose, therapeutic intervention continues to be woven into the fabric of each school day, consequently each child receives a dynamic, holistic curriculum offer which meets each aspect of their Education, Health and Care need.
Post-16:
Having established core independence and life skills, appropriate to need, the Post-16 Curriculum is designed to prepare each young person for their next steps into adulthood.
All pupils, irrespective of need, are supported to access a work-based curriculum model which emulates the demands and expectations of a typical workplace within the school and wider community. This immersive and innovative curriculum offer promotes opportunities for maximised student voice and supported independence in every aspect of the day, collectively and as individuals.
From the beginning of each student’s Post-16 journey, all aspects of the curriculum are geared towards their transition into meaningful, work-based provision beyond Mary Rose. Strong links with adult services, supported employment provision and Post-19 college options are embedded, with clearly sequenced learning opportunities in place to ensure smooth transition and aspirational outcomes for each student which are tracked for 5 years post-Mary Rose.
EHCP outcomes, supported by meaningful accreditation continue to drive the curriculum offer, ensuring that each young person achieves their maximum potential for Life Beyond Mary Rose.
The Lantern:
The Lantern provision provides curriculums for pupils with profound autism and complex learning needs. Teachers plan fortnightly cycles of learning and EHCP plans are reviewed every four weeks or sooner if assessment indicates a need.
Staff continually assess pupil’s readiness to learn and offer input as is required to help pupils regulate so that they can be in the optimal state for learning, calm and alert. Staff continually adjust the learning environment as required by each student to help maintain a regulated state.
Planning for pupils reflects the unique and diverse ways in which they prepare for focused learning, each child’s curriculum is designed to be responsive to their presentation so that learning is continuous, and every opportunity can be used to enhance learning, which is personal to each child.
Pupils have focused learning sessions within each lesson. Around that focused input are further learning opportunities which come directly from pupil’s EHCP targets, this forms a pupil’s ‘Continuous Learning Plan’. Staff use their knowledge of the pupil to identify the learning which will be achievable and appropriate for the student at that time. Pupils learning links to a meaningful theme each term and individual learning is carefully sequenced to ensure that skills are grown across each term and are built up year on year.
Mary Rose Academy External Qualifications