Little Heath School

Spiral Curriculum

Our curriculum places a strong emphasis on equipping students with essential knowledge, skills, and a solid foundation for adult life. In Key Stage 3, we introduce new knowledge and skills within both classroom and home settings:

Retrieval and augmenting: students will repeatedly revisit and enhance their knowledge and skills, with each revisit involving a higher level of challenge. Additionally, this process will encompass a wide range of topics, ensuring a diverse and enriching learning experience.
Translating skills across settings: students progress from Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 5, they will receive support and opportunities to apply their acquired skills across various settings. This journey begins in the classroom and at home, extends throughout the school environment, and ultimately extends into the broader community

We offer a wide-ranging and inspiring educational experience that exposes students to a variety of rich learning opportunities across diverse topics. Our approach follows the spiral curriculum model, which means that students revisit essential skills and knowledge at intervals as they progress through their educational journey. Each revisit builds upon their previous knowledge and skills, helping them become more proficient and enabling them to apply what they've learned in various contexts. This process begins in the classroom and extends outward into the community.

Sequential Learning Across Key Stages

Key Stage 3

Laying the foundations – Classroom and Home

Pupils are supported when transitioning from Key Stage 2 into a new school and learning in Key Stage 3 with a focus on developing self-confidence as learners at their level of ability.
Key learning and skills are repeated and pupils are provided with opportunities to develop these in the context of: Home and Around the School
CAREERS & World of Work (WOW) – DISCOVER: pupils are provided with a range of work experience opportunities within their classes
Key Stage 3 has a particular focus on supporting pupils to transition to an adaptive secondary model of education.

Key Stage 4

Building on foundations – Around the School

Pupils are supported when transitioning from Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 4 with focus on developing more independence at their level of ability
Key learning and skills from Key Stage 3 are repeated and pupils are provided with opportunities to develop and translate these in a broader context of: Around the School
CAREERS & World of Work (WOW) - EXPLORE: pupils are provided with a range of work experience opportunities across the school and, where appropriate, in the community
There are specific accreditation routes for KS4 including GCSE

Key Stage 5 – Sixth Form

Preparation for Adulthood – In the Community

Pupils are supported when transitioning from Key Stage 4 to Key Stage 5 with a focus on preparation for adulthood at their level of ability.
The KS5 provision at LHS is specifically designed for young people aged 16-19 with severe learning difficulties, complex needs or ASD-type conditions who need further work on their life-skills before moving onto college or other provisions.
Our curriculum focuses on a wide range of life-skills to help young people live as independent and fulfilled lives as possible, relative to their individual starting points.
The KS5 Curriculum has the following areas of learning:
- Community Learning
- Functional Skills
- Holistic Learning
- Independent Living
- Work Related Learning
- Personal Development
CAREERS & World of Work (WOW) - EXPERIENCE: pupils are provided with a range of work experience opportunities across the school and in the community (more specifically linked to the ‘job profiles’ prepared as part of specific work-related learning which takes place at the beginning of the school year).