Any curriculum enquiries can be directed to:
Miss Howarth – Deputy Headteacher
Email: taney.howarth@thevalley.herts.sch.uk
Curriculum Intent
What is The Valley aiming to achieve through its curriculum?
- To provide an outstanding education, which is personalised to the need of each student
- To provide a calm, learning focused environment, which is safe, caring and nurturing
- To provide a holistic education, which incorporates guidance and strategies from support agency partnerships e.g. speech and language therapists, occupational therapists etc.
- To increase resilience and develop students’ ability to self-regulate
- To ensure The Valley values are at the heart of learning, these include:
- To develop students’ essential life skills, developing their knowledge and the ‘cultural capital’ they need to succeed in life (personal development)
- To promote physical and emotional well-being
- To prepare students for the next stage of their education
- To ensure all students leave The Valley School with outcomes that reflect the best of their ability
- To ensure that all students receive an education that is in line with the statutory guidance outlined in the SEND Code of Practice 0-25
Implementation
How is the Valley School’s curriculum delivered?
Curriculum Delivery
- Students have full access to a broad and balanced curriculum including the National Curriculum which is differentiated to meet students’ learning needs and styles. Our curriculum is designed to be challenging and appropriate to the student’s stage of development
- Our curriculum offers significant cross-curricula learning opportunities to ensure students make significant personal development
- Our curriculum covers a wide range of core and foundation subjects
- Our KS3 curriculum is a thematic-based curriculum which offers children access to teaching that challenges and supports them to make excellent progress, but that is presented in a way best suited to the individual
- Our KS4 curriculum provides opportunities for students to attain a range of accreditations appropriate to their abilities alongside the acquisition of essential life skills
Covid Catch-up
Teaching
- Focussed on critical aspects we need to teach well. A package of home learning was put together ensuring we focus on basic skills first
- Google was used as a platform and feedback was provided by teachers. Preparation included coaching students in its use in the final couple of days before partial closure
- Face-to-face teaching focussed on key ideas and setting up the home learning with modelling, explanations, and immediate feedback—sharing the steps needed to complete a task
- Home learning focussed on independent practice (with prompts and keywords provided) and short quizzes – all opportunities to embed concepts in the long-term memory
- Feedback on tasks was given via face-to-face learning or through the online platform
- Practical based learning activities were available for students based in school that struggled to access online learning
Targeted Academic Support
- There was an expectation that all vulnerable learners would be in school full-time, experiencing quality first teaching and support with follow-up
- Vulnerable learners not in school received graded support as indicated by monitoring system e.g., accessibility to a device, paper copies, extra phone calls to support learning and well-being, bespoke feedback
- Safe Spaces available to targeted children throughout the day
- Pastoral staff provide small group and 1:1 support to assist children in transition into school
- Mentoring sessions for specific children through the Interventions Team focused on self-awareness, self- management, problem solving and social skills
Wider Strategies
- Based on strong relationships: Communication with families (and staff) made easier by the strength of relationships already in place meaning that families trust the school’s approaches and support the strategies in place for learning as well as well-being
- Daily phone-calls and/or home visits supported the establishment of routines. Lessons on identifying emotions and self-regulation strategies
- Whole school physical environment has been planned with Safe Spaces in year areas
- SEL strategies are taught through life-skills for self- awareness, self-regulation, problem solving, social awareness and relationship skills
- Our curriculum is designed to build and expand on previous skills and subject knowledge, over a five year period. Throughout the curriculum there are opportunities for repetition to embed knowledge, increasing the students’ ability to recall information
- The Valley School offer a wide range of qualifications, which are selected to appropriately challenge students, based on their stage of
- We offer curriculum time to students in Year 11 to attend a weekly college link, developing appropriate work experience opportunities for students in Key Stage 4
- We provide additional extra-curricular activities at lunch time and after
- Access to these are facilitated by offering transport home at the end of the day
Teaching and Learning
- Our students are taught in a primary model in Key Stage 3 with core learning delivered by Primary trained teachers. Other subjects are delivered by subject specialists
- In Key Stage 4 students are taught by subject
- Our Headteacher and senior leaders are well qualified, possessing a range of qualifications
Curriculum – Executive Summary
Our four Whole School objectives
- Every student will make good progress
- Every lesson every day is good or better
- High quality CPD for all staff
- 360 degree wrap around care for students and their families
These are designed to ensure that The Valley School adds value to student’s lives. Based on teacher standards and Social and emotional Development Staff and students have collaborated to design bespoke criteria for ‘Outstanding Teaching and Learning at The Valley’ which inform our monitoring and evaluation.
- The curriculum is differentiated with an ethos of ‘different for different’; with learning based upon the students’ individual needs and level of competence
- When a student is required to remain off school for three or more days, (but is well enough to learn), the school initiates home learning. This may be a short or long term plan depending on the individual needs and ensures students continue to receive a full curriculum if unable to physically attend
Three Tiers
We have a 3 tiered approach to supporting each student’s learning experience. These include:
- Universal – this is the education diet a student receives from transition/subject teachers that include adaptations to match learning needs
- Targeted– this is where it is appropriate for students to receive additional short term special educational provision to remove or reduce obstacles to student’s learning
- Specialist – this is where it is deemed necessary to seek specialist advice and/or regular support from a specialist professional in order to plan for the best possible learning outcomes for a student
Assessment
- The progress of each student is carefully monitored throughout their time at The Valley School
- Checks on progress take place formally at set intervals through the year and informally throughout the school day
- Analysis of progress data shows that student underperformance is rare, but addressed where found
Assessment opportunities follow the following format:
- Staff at The Valley continuously analyse internal and external data from a range of sources to effectively evaluate each student’s performance. This allows us to determine whole school performance, moderate our own practice and plan for further improvement
- Students’ bespoke Flight Path is used to track the progress of individual students and determine expected outcomes from different starting points
- Our Assessment Mapping highlights the range of accreditations available and how they relate to each other
- Teachers and senior leaders use a range of formative and summative assessment procedures to assess progress and
Impact
How does The Valley’s curriculum add value to our students?
- The majority of our students meet or exceed their expected progress
- The majority of our students meet or exceed their expected outcomes in Year 11
- When students transition from The Valley in Year 11, they leave with externally accredited qualifications that reflect the student’s achievements and potential
- On leaving The Valley in Year 11 all students have been prepared for their transition to post 16 learning. All students are supported within school and through external agencies to ensure they access appropriate destinations
- Detailed analysis of outcomes and student progress indicate that there is no statistical significance between the performance of key groups
- The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of students is at least good, with many outstanding features.
- Students develop learning behaviours and self-regulatory practices over their time at The Valley School
