Curriculum

Child Centred Curriculum

Our curriculum at Cherry Garden is based on providing child-centred, individualised learning opportunities for all pupils through a play-based provision. We use the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework to inform and guide our delivery of the 6 areas of learning: Communication, Language and Literacy, Mathematical Development, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Understanding of the World and Expressive Arts and Design.

Before pupils can develop their knowledge and understanding of all six areas of learning, they work on our Explorer Curriculum consisting of communication development, physical development, cognitive development and personal, social and emotional development. This Explorer Curriculum is derived from the Welsh curriculum Routes for Learning which has a focus on early communication, interaction and the cognitive skills that are important for development and learning.

The delivery of the curriculum is based around learning through play to engage children with active learning, exploration and becoming a critical thinker; with a thee-year topic cycle to ensure breadth and balance of learning. We base pupil’s individualised curriculum and goals around the outcomes in their EHCP to ensure that learning is relevant and personalised.

Communication, Language and Literacy

Across the school, we embrace a Total Communication approach to ensure that every child has a purposeful and effective means to communicate. Our core objective is to empower students to express themselves and connect meaningfully with others.

We collaborate closely with speech and language therapists, who provide ongoing training for our staff. This ensures that our pupils can receive tailored support and teaching strategies throughout their day. Our on-site Makaton tutors also play a role in this process, with all staff trained in Makaton to facilitate consistent communication throughout the day and teach this to the pupils during communication groups.

We create an inclusive atmosphere where each child’s individual communication needs are met, fostering confidence and independence in their ability to communicate.

Our school library provides a rich learning environment full of a variety of different books to meet every reader’s interest and need. Reading is an essential, transferable life-skill and it is important that every pupil at Cherry Garden School is provided with the opportunity to learn to read at a level that is suitable, achievable and enriching for them. Strategies used to teach reading are tailored to each individual child’s need, and for those ready to use a structure phonics approach, we use ‘Read Write Inc’. Details of our reading provision can be found here.

Cognition/Mathematical Development

Our mathematical development provision aims to provide the pupils with a wide range of range of functional skills. This provision supports children in their play, critical thinking and creativity. The pupils access a wide range of activities to develop their cognition and maths skills, including lots of fun play opportunities such as role play and heuristic play. Maths is also taught with a specific focus in small groups as well as being incorporated in many other areas of learning, from measuring and counting in cooking to problem solving in the sensory room. We also love working on maths skills out in the community. Pupils often go on weekly shopping trips locally to buy ingredients to work on using money in real life scenarios.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Through our PSED provision, our pupils are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities that promote self-confidence, wellbeing and being actively involved in the world around them.

Our daily routines allow plenty of time for pupils to practice and work on their independence and life skills. We encourage participation and autonomy over these activities, to ensure pupils are prepared for life-long learning and can be as independent as possible both within school and at home. Wherever possible, we use real life experiences such as cooking and trips in to the local community to give the pupils opportunities to develop their self-help and life skills. This is supported by role play and small world opportunities to engage in similar skills in the classroom. We have high-quality input from Occupational Therapists who support our pupils to access all of these self-help activities and to provide adaptations to enable increased access.

We also focus on pupil’s wellbeing, social skills and self-regulation through a wide range of daily routines, play activities, focused teaching and individualised plans. We use our sensory gym and a variety of outdoor spaces to work on sensory regulation routines throughout the day and have regular small group teaching focused on developing friendships, social skills and exploring emotions. Relaxing yoga and meditation activities including assemblies, while being fun, also allow pupils to feel peace, joy and fulfilment.

Physical Development

We have highly individualised targets to support pupils with their physical development, with regular input from physiotherapists who give training and advice on maintaining or increasing levels of balance and mobility. Specialist equipment is provided by the therapy teams where needed, as well as support from the PE and School Sports Network (PESSN) who support PE and swimming as well as training and peer mentoring for staff. The pupils regularly take part in sports network events, competing in team events and trying out new activities at the festival of sport.

Pupils have the opportunity to go to weekly swimming sessions on-site in our hydropool or off-site at Peckham Pulse. They also engage in PE lessons onsite as well as opportunities to learn new skills through our links with the local boxing gym, climbing wall and aerial yoga space. Our school environment and outdoor spaces are designed to offer support and challenge for developing a wide range of physical skills, from outdoor hoists to allow children to have time out of their supportive equipment in a different environment, to an accessible zip wire and more challenging climbing opportunities in our ‘jungle’ playground.

Understanding of the World

At Cherry Garden, we are committed to providing our children with a wealth of outdoor learning experiences that inspire curiosity and engagement. In our sensory garden, children have the chance to explore nature in a hands-on way. Pupils engage in den building and campfire activities.

We also maintain strong connections within our local community, with a progression of opportunities and expereineces as pupils move through the school. Groups of pupils take part in boxing at the local club; we visit the library and have regular trips to the shops and market to practice buying healthy snack and cooking items for the class. Many of our pupils enjoy sensory walks in the local area as well as special trips further afield.

In our science activities, we explore key scientific concepts through interactive experiments and hands-on activities.

We have a wide range of technology for our pupils to explore, including our sensory room, engaging learning activities on the interactive whiteboards and iPads and more bespoke technology such as eye gaze and AAC devices to support our pupil’s communication.

Our diverse assemblies celebrate a range of different topics, ensuring that all students feel valued and represented. We incorporate role play into our classroom learning opportunities, providing children with imaginative scenarios to explore the world around them, as well as learning about the inspirational people within our Cherry Garden community and beyond.

Expressive Arts and Design

Creative expression and exploration run through every child’s day at school. A visitor to any class will see art opportunities available in play-based learning set ups, a chance to plan and design structures using construction resources, a music corner full of instruments, and a role-play area for imaginative performances to take place in (usually with a range of costumes to choose from too). Every pupil also has access to a weekly music session. Many of our young people love their weekly art room sessions, where they find a multi-sensory environment set up for continually evolving ‘process art’ sessions, focusing on a new artist each half term. Elsewhere, woodwork and other DT sessions take place in carefully structured sequences of work. We are lucky to have great relationships with many external arts organisations and workshop providers, whose support for children and staff boosts everyone’s confidence and imagination. We also love our regular visits to galleries, museums, and performances around London.

MOVE

Another physical aspect to our curriculum is MOVE, through this programme we aim for all children, whatever their starting point, to gain some independent movement. The objective is for all children to have movement for functional purposes and to improve their engagement in the world around them.