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Collaborative Provision

Collaborative Provision incorporates students from both key stages 3, 4, and Post-16.

We use a Total Communication approach that consists of:

  • Signing
  • Symbols
  • PECS
  • Verbal
  • Go Talk
  • Communication boards/books
  • Body language
  • Zones of Regulation.

The class day is divided up using a visual timetable with some students having personal schedules to help with processing, regulation and structure. We encourage peer working and group discussions.

The Collaborative Provision follows an Equals-based curriculum using Semi-Formal as its basis, with Wren Offer sessions as well. Key stage 4 uses Semi-Formal Equals. 

Curriculum Philosophy

The biggest indicator of a successful life is social capital – the links and support networks that an individual has around them which support emotional health and wellbeing.

Our curriculum needs to be designed to develop these links:

  • Support for the individual to develop the skills to make links (self-regulation and communication skills) – Me
  • Develop positive relationships (communication skills and emotional regulation) – We
  • Build personal skills that help to develop positive, mutually beneficial relationships, not only at an individual level but between groups (Our) and to benefit others (Your).

We support students to become:

  • Successful learners who make progress, enjoy learning and achieve their potential
  • Confident adults who can live safe, healthy, and happy lives
  • Responsible adults who make a positive contribution to society

We do this by ensuring the curriculum:

  • Is relevant to the specific needs of the student.
  • Offers ways to fulfil their full potential through problem-solving.
  • Is flexible to enable a highly personalised approach.
  • Builds on existing knowledge, skills and understanding by building connections.
  • Reflects the multicultural nature of the local and national community and builds on British values.
  • Encourages respect for others and the environment.
  • Develops confidence, self-esteem, self-regulation and independence.
  • Prepares students for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adulthood.

Collaborative: Communication

Equals

My Communication (Eq)

  • Call and Response – This style of communication encourages our students to recall and retell a story. This would then lead to students being able to tell their own stories, including what they have done at weekends.
  • Greeting someone new – Learning the skill of greeting new people, using sign, symbol, or verbal communication to encourage a conversation.
  • Narratives/ Sensory Story – This would build on the call and response style of communication of recalling and retelling a story.

Wren Offer

Activity Description
Circle Time As part of the morning routine of greeting peers and staff, understanding the weather, and whether a coat or sun-cream is required, and going through a half-day schedule.
Story Time & Reading Interventions Reading interventions, with our Phonics trained staff, for identified students working through the SoundsWrite programme.
Attention Autism Attention Autism is an intervention approach by Speech and Language Therapist Gina Davies which aims to work on the early fundamentals of language, including awareness of others, attention, listening, shared attention, switching attention and turn-taking.
Music Within our music sessions, we use instruments, background music, and stories as a basis for understanding and feeling rhythm, timing, and to be able to experience and make sound.

Collaborative: Good Health

Equals

My Play (Eq)

  • Free Play – Free Play is an open, free play session where students are free to choose what they wish to play with. Adults model play and students are free to join, observe or reject play. Intensive interactions are used in this session and communication boards are modelled where needed.
  • Structured Play – The students have an opportunity to play on the school bikes and go-karts in the playground. Staff support and motivate the students to use bikes and go karts. Also, the students attend a structured play session in the hall in the form of a disco. A number of activities are available to the students; staff support and motivate the students to access the activities.
  • Exploratory Play – Students are totally free to explore play through the use of a variety of resources. Staff are there to model play and make offers of play. Students are free to accept or not to accept offers of play.
  • Soft Play / Ball Pit – The soft play and ball pit are rooms available for free play sessions for students.
  • Free Choice – Students are taught to independently communicate and choose resources in the classroom. Through the use of verbal communication, PECS, communication boards and communication devices.
  • Free Play (Careers) – Free Play is an open, free play session where the students are free to choose what they wish to play with. Adults model play and students are free to join, observe or reject play. Intensive interactions are used in this session and communication boards are modelled where needed.
  • Break – Students have free time to explore resources inside the classroom and in the playground. Students from different classes are encouraged and supported to play and communicate with each other.

My Physical Well-Being/Mental Health (Eq)

The students have a planned Relax Kids session where they learn strategies to support their well-being and mental health. They complete the session together with the peers from their class.

Wren Offer

Activity Description
PE The students access a weekly swimming session off-site with a qualified swimming coach. The students complete a planned PE session in the hall or in the playground.
Relaxation / Chill Out Zone After lunchtime, the students relax with bean bags, blankets and soothing music in order for them to be calm after the break in the playground. The students support tidying up the resources at the end of the Chill Out Zone.
Sensory Room – Sensory processing / story As part of our Therapeutic Sensory Experience offer, our play-trained staff take small groups to the sensory room to work through a story using props and sensory equipment.
Soft play – Physical health/free play A free play session based in the soft play room or ball pit. This encourages social interaction, team work and sharing of resources.
Art An art session based around seasonal trends and/or specific events throughout the year.
Dance As part of our PE programme, our dance offer uses ‘Just Dance’ videos with visual representations to copy and move to.

Collaborative: Friends, Relationships & Community

Activity Description
Playground Interacting and playing with learners across the school. Opportunity to mix and play with ball games, hoops, sand trays, or on play equipment outside.
Structured Play Various resources are used to encourage play alongside and with peers. Trays of different small world items, e.g. farm animals or construction resources, are provided to encourage play and interaction.
RSE – External Body Parts During RSE sessions, we use references to the different body parts, play warm-up games involving using different body parts, e.g. "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" or ‘Simon says’ - referring to body parts. We explore principles of relationships, friendships, and what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like.
Outdoor Learning Use of outdoor areas to encourage learners’ appreciation of the outdoors. Orienteering sessions, whereby learners have a picture of the outdoor space, and they have to locate and bring back the number from that place. Complete this individually or with a partner. Using a nearby park, learners walk to the park, practise road safety, and then play together in the park.

Collaborative: Independent Living

Equals

My Independence (Eq)

Shopping in the community.

Using the minibus, the learners visit a large supermarket to buy snacks and drinks for the week. The learners prepare a shopping list, collect purses from the office and go to ASDA. They collect a trolley and move through the shop, taking it in turns to collect the items on the list. Once all the items have been collected, they take them to the checkout and each learner will buy an item using money from their purse.

Travel Training (Road Safety)

Crossing the road safely with assistance or independently. Learners are taught where it is safe to cross and to stop and wait at the kerb. They check whether it is safe to cross and then walk looking both ways as they cross the road.

The World Around Me:

  • Seasons – The essence of this topic is to clearly demonstrate the passing of time and the repetition of time, as well as explore the connections for learners, in terms of what time of the year might mean for them. Taking September as a start, we will go through summer, autumn, winter, spring, and back to summer again.
  • Recycling – This topic looks at investigating rubbish in school and at home, looking at how to recycle and what can be recycled within a school and at home.
  • Photography – The liberating consequences of learning how to use a camera properly and successfully. This may be the closest that many learners with SLD will get to being truly literate, for instead of using written words to explain, narrate, inform, educate, elucidate, they can and should be using pictures, both moving and still. The mastery of digital photography could release massive potential for improving the communicative abilities of all learners with SLD, especially as they so often struggle to make themselves understood and play a truly active part in social interactions.
  • Food – Throughout this topic, as far as possible, actual items, practical activities and visits should form the backbone of any work; that is, the learning should be contextualised and concrete, done in real time with real food. Photos and videos of pupils taking part in activities and visits should be standard procedure so that time can be spent in the classroom reliving (and therefore repeating) the work done ‘in the field’.

Wren Offer

Activity Description
Swimming Learners get to experience and become more confident in and around water. They become more confident about submerging in water or putting their face into the water. Other learners might develop their swimming stroke / technique and be able to float in the water. Practising dressing and undressing.
Snack Learners make, prepare and clear up their own snacks. They have to get the resources out to make bagels / toast and then toast these before putting on butter / jam / marmite etc. Some learners who are proficient with this will then be faced with a dilemma that needs solving. e.g. there aren’t any spoons or milk, and they have to solve the problem.
Lunch Sharing a meal together and helping to organise and clear away afterwards. Learners need to collect lunches and make decisions about what they will have with their lunches. Once eaten, they need to clear away any rubbish, cups, plates or cutlery. The tables need wiping and chairs stacked up.
Personal Care A number of learners are independent in their personal care, but they do need to indicate they are going to the toilet by taking their toilet card and putting it on the door of the toilet they are using. Other learners who need personal care are encouraged to follow individualised steps in using the toilet and carry out personal hygiene routines.
Food Tech – Healthy Living Preparing healthy foods / snacks. Learners learn about different food types and what is healthy / unhealthy. They then learn how to prepare and put together healthy foods / snacks. They have the opportunity to try different foods and take home finished dishes.

Collaborative: Future Destinations (Employment)

Wren Offer

Activity Description
Skills for Life Making snacks, washing up, preparing the environment for an activity.
Assembly Reflection, focusing on our school values, celebrating success (Star of the Week)
Personal Development – Shopping list Students help to distribute the school food order, by locating items and delivering them to the correct class. This develops skills in: speaking and listening; following instructions; and travelling around school.
Community Inclusion Students visit the community through a variety of different experiences. Students practice travel training via bus journeys and road safety. Visits to supermarkets, high street shops, parks and outdoor environments. Other opportunities include fishing and sporting events.
Creative Experiences Creative Experiences encourages students to try new creative activities – from art and design, to music, dance and drama. Students are encouraged to find activities they enjoy and trial different activities.

  1. Collaborative Curriculum Linkage

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