Context:

The vast majority  of pupils at Longcause school have Autism with their primary need being Communication and Interaction difficulties, which is closely followed by cognition and learning and/or social and emotional difficulties. This impacts how our pupils perceive the world and also their desire and ability to interact with others. It is this impact on our pupils' understanding that can lead to them being additionally vulnerable in a range of contexts and this therefore drives the priorities of our Curriculum. 

One of the difficulties our children have is with flexibility of thought. Therefore we want our children to have even more opportunities to develop flexible thinking outside of their current experience. In addition to their needs they also live in one of the less diverse places in the UK and have less opportunities to encounter different ways of life because of this. Therefore we have developed and designed our curriculum to increase their cultural capital through a breadth of knowledge and experiences. 

Curriculum Intent 

‘Longcause Learning for Life’ is our key motto and therefore we aim to create a structured curriculum  where we are able to recognise and celebrate the uniqueness of all of our learners, provide a breadth of  experiences, fulfil their aspirations and where they will be prepared for their lives beyond school including:

1. Preparation for Employment e.g. training, further study, entrepreneurship

2. Preparation for Independent Living e.g. how the pupil wants to live and what support they will need.

3. Preparation for Community Participation e.g. understanding the pupil’s mobility and transport needs, social and community activities, engagement in local decision making, developing and maintaining friendships.

4. Preparation for good health in adult life e.g. planning for moving from paediatric health services to adult health care, knowing which professionals will be involved and what they will need to know about the pupil’s health needs.

Children are learning all the time and it is our responsibility to optimise learning opportunities  throughout the entire school day.

All pupils at Longcause School will access the curriculum at a level which is suitable for their age and  ability. No pupil is disapplied from the Foundation Stage or Longcause Curriculum documents,  Relationships, Sex and Health Education or RE, except by parental wish where this complies with our  school policy. Further information on parental rights to withdraw pupils from aspects of the curriculum  can be found in the Relationships Education & Relationships and Sex Education Policy.  

British values are threaded through all of our curriculum key stages. The four areas of British Values are Democracy, Rules of the Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance. 

At Longcause School we want to support all pupils with SEND to develop the skills and attitudes to lead fulfilled lives. Our ethos is to support the children’s personal, social, emotional and communication development so that they feel safe and can begin their journey to readiness for learning.

We continue the dedication to providing a broad and balanced curriculum at levels  appropriate to the developmental understanding of our pupils. Our curriculum approach reflects our respect  for each pupil as an individual; aiming to develop knowledge, understanding, self-reliance and coping skills in  a supportive environment.

Due to a rapidly changing cohort of needs, which have become more complex in their communication needs in particular, with more children being preverbal and having complex cognition and learning needs we have had to adapt and evolve our curriculum to meet these evolving needs. We have therefore created 3 pathways, after the Early Years stage which we believe reflect the diverse range of our cohorts. These are Explorers, Adventurers and Pioneers and are explained in further detail on the Curriculum Pathways Pages (click on link below)

Further information on our curriculum can be found in our curriculum policy - link below.