Curriculum

The curriculum offered at Heron Academy

Our curriculum aims to build on our pupils' strengths and support their needs. We aim to prepare our pupils to live fulfilled and engaged adult lives in the community. We work on supporting our pupils to develop the skills and knowledge to access the community and become active members within it. This happens in discrete lessons. Due to the nature of our pupils, some of our learning is incidental. Every interaction is a learning opportunity.

Our pupils have Education, Health, and Care Plans, and our curriculum ensures that the four identified areas of need are met: Communication and Interaction, Cognition and Learning, Social, Emotional and Mental Health, and Physical and Sensory. At Heron, we have identified an important area of need to our cohort: Independence and Community Involvement. Our curriculum aims to be holistic and meaningful for all of our pupils.

At Heron, we follow a pathway model to ensure pupils receive an education well-suited to their learning needs. We have four pathways. Pupils are carefully assessed to establish which pathway best suits their learning needs and are placed into classes as appropriate. The four pathways can be seen in the continuum section. Our post-16 cohort engages with thematic curricula and/or work experience curricula dependent on the pupil's stage of development.  

The curriculum is based on the Equals Schemes of Work, which assesses pupils using the Engagement Model to Pre-Key Stage Standards. We adopt equal schemes of work to meet our cohort's needs, creating bespoke learning programmes for each class. Across all pathways, work units are taught thematically, enabling skills and knowledge to be generalised and maintained engagingly and effectively. 

Teachers are encouraged to use the suggested activities in the Equals schemes of work as a starting point for pupil-focused planning. The termly theme must be woven through the class planning to help bring the learning to life and generalise skills and knowledge.

Our pupils have access to a rich and broad curriculum that develops pre-requisite and subject-specific skills. For instance, our non-subject-specific pupils will not have subject-specific lessons but will be exposed to subject-specific content such as reading and early numeracy activities. Every pupil should have opportunities to experience early literacy and numeracy activities, using ability-appropriate pedagogy to ensure these activities are engaging and fun.

At Heron, we firmly believe pupils should have access to a wide range of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Books are carefully selected to support our termly themes. Within this, pupils can access the joy of shared reading in our Love of Literacy sessions – stories, rhythm, rhyme, key vocabulary, alliteration, call and response, sensory storytelling and story massage are just a few of the ways that our teachers bring stories to life for our pupils. 

Our Soundabout pre-phonics programme aims to develop sound awareness, response, differentiation, identification, and production skills, key learning areas in Pathway 1 and 2 classes. These are the early developmental skills that children need to develop before accessing Phase 2 phonics. For pupils ready to access phonics – broadly speaking, those pupils in Pathway 3 and 4 classes - teachers adapt the learning from the Little Wandle phonics programme, helping pupils build their knowledge of phonemes, graphemes, blending and segmenting. These are the building blocks for reading instruction. We support our pupils in meeting their full potential, whether through experiencing diverse sound activities or learning to read and write.

Emotional regulation is a key part of our learning offer. Pupils access support through our Zones of Regulation programme, which includes focused sessions and is intrinsically interwoven throughout the school day.

At Heron, we are very proud of our ‘My Life Skills at Heron’ scheme of work, which can be adapted to suit the needs of pupils across all pathways and which ensures our pupils have a wide range of opportunities to access life skills learning in our specialist facilities, which include shopping and working at the Heron Café, home-making skills in the Hotel Heron and Life Skills room, and accessing internal work experience placements. As pupils progress through the key stages and develop their skills, knowledge, and confidence, we look to support them in transferring these into a broader world context by teaching life skills on external work placements and out in the community.

The ultimate aim of our curriculum is for our pupils to leave Heron able to manage their emotions, complete tasks with a degree of independence, advocate for themselves, and enjoy life. All stakeholders have a vital role in making this a reality.