Curriculum Statement

Curriculum Intent

At Danebrook House School, we deliver an exciting and innovative curriculum, specifically developed to meet the needs of students with varied Special Educational Needs. The overall purpose of our curriculum is to prepare students for adulthood through a positive and supportive framework that helps to develop learners who are.

1. Confident learners -Who can identify with themselves who lead safe, healthy, and fulfilling lives.
2. Successful learners – who enjoy school, make great progress, and achieve a range of qualifications based.
3. Responsible individuals – Who make productive contributions to democratic society and follow the rule of law.

Danebrook House School will follow the National Curriculum and offer a broad and balanced curriculum that ensures our students develop the essential skills across the curriculum including reading, writing, oracy, and numeracy.

The curriculum will foster student’s creativity, wonder and awe and develop essential independent skills that transfer to adult life. The curriculum will promote a healthy and safe lifestyle underpinned by an understanding of community cohesion and the five fundamental British values of; democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and acceptance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

Students at Danebrook House School understand having life skills are necessary to navigate all walks of life, including, at home, in education, training or employment. We believe that overarching goal is to lay the foundations for students to have a meaningful and independent adult life and are well-placed to make a positive contribution to life beyond school.

Curriculum Implementation

At Bridge House the consistent core threads of our curriculum are in line with the student’s EHCP’s which include:

Cognition and Learning

Communication & Language

Emotional, Social well-being and Positive Mental Health

Physical development

Across the school, teaching is differentiated to meet the needs of all students. Multi agency working is essential for student’s learning with support from Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Therapist and curricular specialists alongside holistic support including CAMHS and social care.

Interventions are an integral part of the schools’ timetable and curriculum offer and they may include, sensory diets, precision teaching, animal therapy, play therapy and Lego Therapy

All staff provide a positive ethos and understanding of issues surrounding behaviour and communication.

At Danebrook House School, we deliver our curriculum using a range of approaches and learning styles to meet the diverse needs of the students. When students start at Danebrook House School the focus of education is to create a feeling of safety and helping the students to secure positive relationships with both staff and other students.

Physical and sensory needs are also taken into consideration, we will look for discrete ways in which students can learn skills alongside their acquisition of knowledge, ensuring that both are developed.

We aim for a depth of learning and breadth of coverage and staff subject knowledge links components of knowledge to broader, conceptual learning. Opportunities to practice skills and knowledge are built into the curriculum to secure a deep understanding of what students have been taught and to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.

We have excellent home-school links and specialist roles which help to support all aspects of family life through regular 1:1 support and through our parent’s meetings where help and advice is given as needs arise. We include families in decisions that affect their students. Staff will seek and take advice from families and outside agencies to see how best to support our students, so that we can have the best outcomes for their futures and nurture their progress.

Through our exciting, stimulating, and creative curriculum we aim for every student to enjoy learning and gain knowledge, skills and attributes which will enable them to lead happy, fulfilling, and successful lives in the future. We live in an ever-changing world, and it is our aim to ensure that our students are ready to face these challenges and succeed in whatever they do.

We take every opportunity to enrich the curriculum with outside providers, trips and visits, celebration days, whole school themed weeks and extra–curricular opportunities. This gives context to learning and shows our students that education is relevant, fun, and worthwhile.

Prior Learning & Assessment

Thorough the scrutiny of subject data, staff can plan further interventions as needed with the quality of teaching regularly monitored through collaborative learning walks, book celebration and lesson observations. At Danebrook House School we will regularly undertake student, parent and staff surveys to monitor and improve our practice, to develop students who thrive during their time at school and to encourage meaningful, happy, and fulfilling futures for all.

We will also use a variety of interventions to support emotional literacy and regulation skills with sessions timetabled to nurture positive mental health so that learning can continue successfully.

Staff systematically check students understanding to identify gaps in learning and misconceptions. This provides clear feedback for ways forward so that the students make progress. Clearly success criteria are used to gain intended learning outcomes and elicit valuable student self-assessment.

Effective questioning techniques develop higher order thinking skills and support the retention of knowledge and understanding, as staff strive to offer as many recall and application activities as possible. We regularly refer to current research and use the new findings to update.

Curriculum Impact

The intention of the multi-faceted curriculum is for students to make excellent progress during their time at Danebrook House School, academically, socially, and personally transforming their lives and giving them hope for the future.

Subject leaders will regularly share data about their subjects with students, parents, and staff, celebrating the many examples of progress and success as a result of the effort undertaken by our students, staff, and family support.

We want all students to maintain positive mental health and be able to regulate and express their emotions in a healthy way. They will build up resilience and learn strategies to cope with managing their feelings and emotions.

At the end of our student’s journey with Danebrook House School we would encourage our students to be independent learners who are ready to transition into either further and or higher education, work placement or apprenticeships. We want students to be able to be responsible in the wider world, confident in themselves and surroundings and have successfully gained national recognised certificates of education, and personal achievements with social, emotional developments, as well as independent life skills.