ImPACTs Curriculum

Children attending our School follow the ImPACTS curriculum. The curriculum is at the heart of everything we do. 

Since 2008 ImPACTS key skills approach to assessment, curriculum and monitoring has been developing. The most up-to-date research and findings about learning, teaching, neurological development, physical development and existing curriculum models are written in to the curriculum and underpin it.

An outstanding and innovative curriculum that meets fully the needs of all learners, because it underpins the teaching of the key skills required for learning. 

Senior leaders ensure the accuracy of staff members’ assessments of pupils’ learning through a process of internal and external verification in which they have been trained. Inspectors were able to scrutinise impressive evidence of extensive external verification from links with five other special schools. 

- Ofsted, May 2017

The curriculum contains five key skill areas:Impacts

1. communication
2. cognitive skills
3. environmental control technology
4. social and emotional well-being
5. physical skills (gross and fine motor).Arrow

The implementation of our curriculum – how we teach. We:

  • employ staff with relevant skills and upskill and train on an ongoing basis
  • know all of our children are unique and individual and plan for their holistic needs across their education, health, therapy and care
  • recognise all of our learners require access unique and well planned activities relevant to them
  • challenge perceived norms, have ambition, plan and support children and their families to take assessed risks to move children on
  • work to solve problems that affect change in every session
  • adopt flexible teaching styles adapted to a child’s likes, dislikes, motivators, emotional, health and well-being which we know can impact their access to learning.
  • value and acknowledge that most of our children are ‘sensory beings’ living amongst ‘linguistic adults! We limit our speech, accept that ‘less is more’ and adopt relevant communication modes to support them
  • do not seek to change our ‘sensory beings’ but deliver a sensory curriculum to support their sensory needs
  • acknowledge processing time is key to a child being able to make sense of and respond
  • know that responses can be reliant on relationships and interpretation on our part so we actively share our observations amongst our teams
  • we know that all behaviours are communication and we seek to find out what those responses are and what they tell us.

The impact of our curriculum – making progress and reaching intended outcomes:

  • we know that we need assessments and curricula that are designed to meet the unique needs of our children. Pupils are assessed on an individual basis gathering a wide range of evidence to show pupils learning and progression
  • we are able to demonstrate achievement for all pupils by finely graded assessment and detailed planning processes
  • we are able to identify progress but also see early indicators of regression in some of pupils with degenerative conditions
  • we celebrate all achievements and progress but also recognise the value of maintaining skills for some children

Please ask about our assessment framework and evidence, achievement and progress books for further information.

In addition, we also take into account the following:

Curriculum

ImPACTS curriculum guide

For further information on our curriculum, the ImPACTS curriculum guide will be available here soon...

Ofsted Good provider