Curriculum for Wales

Our priority is to nurture our young people to be the best that they can be and to give them the confidence and freedom to be who they want to be, in a safe, trauma and mental health informed environment.

Greenhill Learning Community is a unique school where the staff work tirelessly to support young people to achieve appropriate accreditation, examination success, develop social skills and improve students’ opportunities in life.  Our purpose is to ensure that every child has a right to educational excellence through the provision of high quality experiences.  Our energies are focused on facilitating progression so that our students achieve to the best of their abilities.

Greenhill is a great place to be and our therapeutic approach to education is based on the values of respect, responsibility and developing good relationships.  Our aim is to embody the four purposes of education in a caring and supportive and nurturing community. Joining Greenhill School is a fresh start for our students, many of whom experience social emotional and mental health difficulties and we pride ourselves on being able to provide a personalised and bespoke approach to helping students to overcome the numerous challenges they face.  At Greenhill every student and their family is valued and differing needs are acknowledged, accepted and met.

We aim to create a curriculum that is personalised, full of memorable and positive experiences, inside and outside of the classroom, that spark a love of learning and an enthusiasm to make the most of the opportunities given.

The curriculum enables us to fulfil our vision by first breaking down the barriers that have impacted on the pupils’ ability to learn.

As part of our curriculum design:

The senior leadership team attended Consortium led Curriculum for Wales training.  

All teachers attended training led by the Consortium on the 6 Areas of Learning and Experience.  

Various staff members attended training sessions on the RSE and REV. 

An audit of staff’s digital skills was conducted and targeted support given where appropriate.

A whole school training session in Careers and Work Related experiences was delivered by our Careers Wales adviser.

The SLT, teachers , TAs considered, researched and trained to deliver the pupil offer through a trauma and mental health informed approach. 

The whole school team reflected on what a successful future would look like for a Greenhill pupil and the people we hoped they would become. We considered attributes and qualities we would hope to nurture as well as the key skills and knowledge we felt were necessary for the pupils to acquire whilst at school, in order to manage and live life well after their time with us. This supported the creation of the vision for our school and its curriculum.  

Pupils were consulted about the vision and the intentions of the curriculum; they were asked about what they wanted to learn and how they should learn it. Parents have been canvassed about what they would want to see in the curriculum and we will endeavour to incorporate their ideas. Governors have been kept abreast of our CFW journey through meetings, Headteacher interim reports and presentations.

In INSET sessions the whole school team considered the skills, knowledge and pedagogical approach we would need to realise our vision.  

We considered the current curriculum, what was working and what could be changed for the better. Part of this was thinking about purposeful qualifications that would support and develop skills for life and the value added by the 6th form provision, to consolidate the learning between 11-16 and to take the curriculum a step further.

SLT engaged with a range of school forums; for example, assessment, literacy, DCF, English, Siarter Iaith Cymraeg.  

The value of costed external provision was reflected upon, balancing budget allocation against individual pupil engagement and outcomes. 

Committed to continuing the use of specialist external providers who provide learners with distinct and enriched experiences. A range of providers, from the police to local artists, businesses and community members enhance our work related to RSE, RVE. 

Inset sessions creating and trialling our own progress ladders to allow for and capture the very small steps of learning within the broad Progression Steps of the CFW. 

Engaged with Cornerstones curriculum package to support our content, delivery, progression and tracking.  

Transition teachers, ALNCo and Family Therapist have worked with staff from The Court school, our feeder primary, as well as other staff across the city, to ensure continuity of approach and a sharing of key information to support smooth transitions as well as progression and next steps in learning for all pupils.

We regularly share information on the curriculum during person centred annual reviews looking for ways to keep each child fully engaged with their own learning by giving them ownership of it and through parent/carer coffee mornings, where parents/carers have the opportunity to discuss their child’s learning, progress and needs.  

We have trialled the Cornerstones package and made steady progress towards full implementation in September 2022. 

We will regularly evaluate the SIP priority of the curriculum; by working collaboratively we will be able to evaluate, reflect and refine the curriculum offer. Feedback from stakeholders will support the evaluation process. 

During their time at Greenhill, all of our learners should achieve across all curriculum areas, especially health and well-being, literacy, numeracy and digital skills. As well as this, we are committed to developing skills for life, underpinned by our core values of:

Relationships, Respect, Responsibility

We want our learners to develop a positive attitude and work ethic to become responsible adults.

We hope to help pupils develop an understanding of their own emotions, and those of others in order to thrive in the outside world. Self-regulation, appropriate decision making, control and coping mechanisms should be developed and personalised for all our learners.

We want our learners to nurture positive and appropriate relationships with others, and have good, functional social skills. We aim to offer a team of emotionally available adults to support their ability to make secure attachments, which will underpin good mental health and well-being as they progress into adulthood. We expect our staff to model appropriate behaviours and our older learners to be good role models for their younger peers. We want all pupils to understand that rules and boundaries are part of life; an understanding of the law and legal system will help to consolidate these values.

The curriculum will continue to be personalised and designed to give our pupils the individual skills they will need to have successful futures. Each teacher will design experiences in a unique way for each class and some pupils will have a highly bespoke offer in order to allow equality of access and engagement.

We value the notion that the ‘experiences’ we offer are as important as the area of learning and for some pupils, more so. We want our pupils to have happy memories of everything they do at Greenhill and we will facilitate this across all of the Areas of Learning and Experience. The curriculum encompasses the concepts in all of the statements of ‘What Matters’ and provides appropriate progression in accord with the principles of progression. It also aligns to the mandatory requirements of teaching Welsh, English and Religion, Values and Ethics (RVE). The mandatory elements of Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) and the cross curricular skills of literacy, numeracy and digital competence will be embedded throughout the curriculum.

Each AoLE will have equal importance but the bedrock of all we do at Greenhill will be developing pupil well-being. All of our learners are statemented/ have IDPs for complex and severs difficulties with managing their emotional and social interactions. Most struggle with expressing and understanding their emotions so teaching pupils about neuroscience, what happens to their bodies and exploring strategies to cope, regulate and reflect is key to everything we do, if we are to break down barriers to learning.

Outdoor learning is a priority for us and we have our own bespoke COED programme (Creative Outdoor Education Development) We understand how being in nature regulates the body and the mind, as well as facilitate hands on experiential learning in real life contexts. 

Our curriculum will be fun, engaging and experiential. It will be flexible and responsive to the interests and needs of the individual learner and will allow all learners to have a positive experience of learning and to feel success. 

Curriculum Aims:

To provide a curriculum full of purpose that interests and makes sense to our young people.  To offer a broad and balanced curriculum with learning opportunities within and across all Areas of Learning and Experience.  To ensure ‘What Matters’ is central to our learning opportunities.  To offer a curriculum with core experiences and with the flexibility to respond to what’s happening in the world. To support learners in developing strategies to relate, self-regulate and reflect.  To create a bespoke learning plan for those who struggle to engage and our ‘hardest to reach’ young people.  To offer learning opportunities to maximise the potential of all learners at whatever stage they are at.  To offer meaningful, vocational experiences  that reflect local employment opportunities and routes to further education and training

We believe assessment and progression are fundamental to ensuring we fulfil our school vision. Progression will not only be measured against academic achievement but also by other factors important to our school context.  This information will be captured in the Cornerstones Curriculum platform, our in-house tracking and assessment, in Motional, and other key records.

Our school curriculum is underpinned by the mandatory principles of progression, which describe what it means for learners to progress and we have systems in place to inform progress in different areas. We use a variety of evidence-informed assessment strategies to enable each individual learner to make progress, both academically, socially and emotionally, at an appropriate pace. Our assessment processes ensure engagement between the teacher, teaching assistant and the pupil in order to determine what is going well and what needs to be done to ensure next steps in learning.

Reviewing the Curriculum

 We will create daily ‘Pause for Progress’ opportunities, to enable teachers and teaching assistants to capture the steps in learning for each day.

We will conduct self evaluation against the priorities of the SIP and in collaboration with stakeholders.

 We will engage in professional discussions with partners about Progression and Assessment as outlined by the ‘Camau I’r Dyfodol’ guidance.

We will reflect termly on topics taught through INSET sessions, in order to adapt and refine delivery, knowledge and skills.