Explorers Pathway

Aiming for greater independence

 

Our Explorers’ Pathway is designed for our students who have profound and multiple leaning difficulties. 

“Pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties have complex learning needs. In addition to very severe learning difficulties, pupils have other significant difficulties, such as physical difficulties, sensory impairment or a severe medical condition.

Pupils require a high level of adult support, both for their learning needs and for their personal care. They are likely to need sensory stimulation and a curriculum broken down into very small steps. Their attainments are likely to remain in the early P Scale range (P1-4) throughout their school career.”

(Department of Education)

Curriculum Areas

The Explorers’ Pathway begins with the individual needs of each student and is therefore therapy based. Learning will no longer be organised into traditional subjects, such as geography and history. Learning will be holistic across the 4 areas of need that we know our students have.

These are:

  • Communication and Interaction
  • Cognition and Learning
  • Social Emotional and Mental Health
  • Physical and Sensory Development

 

 Personalised Learning

The individual student will be central to the learning process. Class teams, multi-agency staff and parents will agree a small number of Personal Learning Intentions for each student. These will take into account the needs and motivators for each student.

Learning Intentions will be delivered holistically; they will cover a large area of the curriculum. They are the priorities for that student and they will carry across every aspect of their lives, in and out of school.

Our Impact - How we know that our Students are Making Progress

We recognise that progress for our students with profound and multiple learning difficulties may look very different from the linear progress made by neuro-typical learners and therefore approaches to assessment, need to show the following aspects of lateral progress:

  • The level of support that the student needs to demonstrate the skill
  • How well the student has mastered the skill
  • How frequently the student demonstrates the skill
  • The range of contexts I which the student can demonstrate the skill

 

P levels which have traditionally been used to assess our students, presume linear progress and are not best placed to show the progress that they make.

We will instead use a “basket of indicators” to tell the story of each student’s unique learning journey.

We will use an app called “Evidence for Learning” to capture photographic and video evidence of our students making progress towards their Personal Learning Intentions. Staff can add their observations and link these to multiple frameworks.

We will use the following “basket of indicators” to demonstrate progress:

  • The Explorers’ Framework
  • Welsh Routes for Learning
  • Progress towards Personal Learning Intentions
  • Learning Journals
  • MAPP Assessment
  • Progress towards Therapy Goals
  • Pupil Progress Meetings with teachers, therapists and families 3 times a year
  • MOVE (movement opportunities via education) Goals
  • Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (for those students in Year R)
  • Engagement Model
  • End of Year Explorers’ Level