Welcome to the Learning for Life curriciulum webpage
 

At Longcause School, we recognise that some children will find the development of specific social skills and life skills a challenge. Within some settings it may be taken for granted that these skills will naturally occur, however at Longcause School we understand that these skills need to be directly taught. As a result of this Longcause School has created it's own unique PSHE curriculum which we name our 'Learning for Life Curriculum' (LLfL) 

Our aim was to create a curriculum for our pupils in order for them to reach their fullest potential in their wider lives beyond school, and to be able to provide them with the skills needed to live as independently as possible.  It is our intent to teach the range of life skills that would not necessarily be taught in mainstream schools and those that other children may learn naturally as they develop. A key skill that we wish our pupils to learn is how to be safe in a range of different contexts and how to manage a range of situations that could arise. As a school we recognise the importance of mental well being on pupils overall health and development. We wish to provide pupils with a range of facts about their own mental health and to provide them with different strategies and techniques in order to more fully support their mental health needs.  

Social Communications forms an integral part of our LLfL curriculum. Our aim is to be able to provide pupils with the social communication skills in order to manage their day to day lives and encounters with others. We also wish for pupils to develop the skills that they need to manage different social situations and to have the skills needed to be able to form relationships with others and be able to develop the connections that others may naturally develop.

We wish for all of our pupils at Longcause to be able to lead as full lives as possible. As part of this it is essential that they have an understanding of how to be safe both within the home and also their community. Though we recognise that this will be different for each pupil, we hope that pupils will be as active citizens and as independent in the greatest way possible in their lives beyond school. This includes providing pupils with the skills to be able to travel independently, take part and access particular interests/ hobbies/ groups beyond school in order to enrich their lives and encourage their internal motivation. One of our greatest aspirations for our pupils is that they may be able to go on to have some form of employment beyond school.

Through our discussions with families and a whole school collaboration with staff, we were able to identify they key skills that we felt were the most important aspects for our pupils' lives. 

Our curriculum is aligned with our schools vision of Learning for Life, and therefore the curriculum encompasses the National policy for PSHE, RSE and Health Education, yet is much broader in the skills that the pupils have the opportunity to develop.

The LLfL Curriculum focuses on the following areas-

• Social communication- This is split into an Early curriculum,  a Later curriculum and Engagement.

• Relationships and health - including Mental wellbeing, Drugs and alcohol.

• Relationships and sex

• Looking after a home

• Personal health and safety

• Safety inside the home

• Safety outside the home

In order to provide a breadth of experiences for all pupils, there is a two yer coverage map, however this is not to enable progression.

Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education. 

The Department for Education has developed a new framework for schools to implement which will be statutory from September 2020. This framework is to support us in teaching children and young people to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal and social lives in a positive way. We will be delivering the new framework within our current LLfL curriculum and have adapted it in order to meet these guidelines and ensure full coverage of the statutory framework. 

In addition, we have created a 'Mental Wellbeing' strand of the LLfL curriculum in order to support children in developing the skills and knowledge they need in relation to mental health. We will be using our knowledge of our pupils in order to ensure that all content delivered is age and developmentally appropriate.

Thank you to all of the families who responded to the consultation for the new RSE curriculum. We had a fantastic response to the questionnaires and were pleased to welcome families in to school to discuss this further.

If you would like any additional information please contact Faye James by emailing fjames@longcause.plymouth.sch.uk.

TALKABOUT

Talkabout is a social communication skills programme that aims to develop self-esteem, social skills and friendship skills.

Talkabout is delivered as an intervention for small groups; weekly sessions are timetabled for Middle and Upper school pupils.

The programme has a hierarchical structure: to build on foundations of self-awareness and self-esteem, developing social learning through body language and talking. Friendship skills are complicated and improve as the pupils work through the levels.

The initial focus at Longcause is on relationship building, with activities to develop self-awareness and self-esteem. Pupils then move onto Body Language - the aim of this level is to increase children's awareness of body language and to improve skills in using body language effectively.

The small groups are supported by two familiar adults. We continue to monitor the positive impact of this social communication intervention, and expand the Talkabout team as necessary.

To find out more about Talkabout and its creator, Alex Kelly, please visit the following website:

http://alexkelly.biz/

KS4 Accreditation

Pupils in KS4 follow the ASDAN PSD accreditation. More information about this can be found on the KS4 page.