Curriculum

Beckfoot Phoenix is committed to the Beckfoot Trust vision of:   

• Creating remarkable learning environments  

• So that all of our children ‘enjoy, learn and succeed’ and 

• No child is left behind.  

 As a school, we want children to:  

• Enjoy learning and develop their strengths and interests  

• Learn at depth 

• Be able to transfer what they learn to different contexts 

• Use and apply what they learn to their life with increasing independence and 

• Achieve and make progress towards their Education, Health and Care Plan targets.   

We want learning opportunities to: 

• Teach children skills and knowledge they will need in their life – both now and in the future 

• Follow a sequence so that new learning builds on previous learning 

• Provide lots of opportunities for children to practice and apply what they are learning 

• Motivate and challenge children so that they want to learn.  

So that children at Beckfoot Phoenix:  

• Become confident communicators  

• Learn knowledge and skills that they can use in their life - both now and in the future 

• Contribute positively to their school, their family and their community  

Following years of differentiation of the National Curriculum, adaptations and 'making do', we, at Beckfoot Phoenix are proud to have developed our own curriculum for our very special 21st Generation learners.Our curriculum teaches children the skills they need for life.  It is developmental, meaningful and functional.   It is research based and includes the essential building blocks for learning that our children may have missed, such as  executive functioning skills ie. working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, finger and hand dexterity and strength, and social and emotional development.  The curriculum runs throughout school from nursery to key stage 2 and includes the Early Years and the National curriculum as well as Beckfoot Phoenix specific content.  It is planned by developmental stage rather than age, with children being grouped into Bases and classes accordingly.

A recent external review of our curriculum reported that our curriculum is 'innovative' and 'ambitious because it seeks to focus on the priority needs of the pupils and to maximise their independence and participation in wider life'.

Parents/Carers receive regular updates about what their child and their class are doing in lessons via the Class Dojo.  These include messages, photos and examples of work.

Progress shown within the child's assessment file, and portfolio of assessments is shared with parents/carers at termly parent afternoons and EHCP meetings.

It is great when families work with us to help their child to learn even more. There are lots of ways that families can do this: 

• look on class Dojo to see what the class have been doing and do more of this at home.  

• read at home. 

• read and count when out and about.  

• complete any home learning that the class has sent home. 

• take part in any activities that will help the progress made towards EHCP targets. 

  For more information, please read: 

• our curriculum rationale that explains the curriculum intent, implementation, and impact 

• our curriculum coverage document that shows the coverage across our 5 curriculum stages 

Autumn Term Covid 19 Update: During the Autumn term, to help everybody remain safe, all lessons are taking place within class bubbles, ie. Orange Base, Purple Base, Yellow Base, Blue Base and Green Base. Due to the vulnerabilities of Red base, each class within Red base is its own bubble. Specialised areas such as the hall or rebound room are cleaned down or left for 72 hours  before another bubble enters it. For lessons within bubbles, staff will wear face visors when working with children, and  specialist teachers, eg. music teacher, will focus on one bubble at a time, whilst following the school's risk assessment, and wearing a face visor.  Anyone working directly with children, eg. therapists, or anyone entering the bubble, eg. senior leadership team, will wear full PPE. In this way, we can be sure that, should the need arise, we are able to isolate bubbles without compromising the safety of others in the school.