At Swalcliffe Park School, our ‘Quality of Life’ (QoL) approach ensures we hear student and family voices on the issues of importance to them regularly, through weekly ‘keyworking’ and termly QoL surveys.
Hearing student and family voices regularly helps us work together to identify targets or ‘areas of focus’ for the term ahead, as well as evaluating progress against previous targets.
We have written previously about the school’s ‘Independence Plus’ curriculum and how this is integrated within our school day and residential provision. This work has evolved to improve curriculum planning, as well as supporting the Annual Review process.
Pupils learn about safety while working in the kitchen
The school curriculum
We have organised the curriculum under six themes:
- My Safety (including safeguarding curriculum)
- Transitions/ moving on from school
- All about me
- At home
- In school
- In the community
This means we can take one theme at a time for each half-term throughout the year and address it through a series of student-generated projects. By doing this we can work collaboratively across the school in sharing ideas and resources, as well as planning activities and visits.
The half-termly themes are set at the beginning of the year and shared with governors and families, so everyone knows the focus of the project work. Evidence of progress is collected in digital portfolios, to which students, families and staff can all contribute.
A workshop during Careers Week
Curriculum themes
The theme for the first half of this term was ‘My Safety’. There were lots of different activities and projects going on in school, which included learning to ride a bike, learning to swim and being safe online, as well as the theme being integrated into all subjects across the curriculum.
Since half-term the theme has been around transitions and moving on from school. So, last week, we held a Careers Week, with a wide range of employers coming into school to talk about their jobs and what they do. This will be followed by visits out to see different jobs in action, as well as visits to colleges.
Progress within the Independence Plus curriculum is also assessed against end of key stage outcomes to provide a seamless link with the annual review process. These outcomes are benchmarked against mainstream norms for each key stage, which allows us to see how well our students are progressing in relation to their mainstream peers.
A talk on film production during Careers Week
Areas of need
This is not because we expect similar levels of development, but it helps us see where the main areas of need persist. This can help discussions in annual review meetings for the continuing need for specialist support and placement, particularly in Sixth Form years, where funding is reviewed annually.
We have also mapped our QoL survey questions against these outcomes so that students, staff and families can also work on identified priorities within the projects, as well as at other times in school and at home. To find out more please just get in touch.
The result is a huge increase in enthusiasm and collaborative working for all students and staff… and families love it too!
Please get in touch
For more information about our Independence curriculum and Quality of Life approach you can contact Kiran on khingorani@swalcliffepark.co.uk or visit our website www.swalcliffepark.co.uk and our ‘YouTube’ channel.
