Broad and General Education (P1-S3)

Within Carronhill School, we aim to provide a curriculum that is both inclusive and ambitious for all – a curriculum that meets the needs of our learners and is focused on the individual. 

The curriculum should be appropriate to each and every learner and although modelled around the Curriculum for Excellence it is adapted and progressive according to their needs.  Our learners may access parts of the curriculum in different ways, with different levels of support as they move through the school. 

Our curriculum is structured around A Curriculum for Excellence and the milestone to support learners with complex additional needs . As part of our toolkit for learning we focus heavily on communication and regulation. We believe that behaviour is a form of communication and use this to find out how our learners are presenting, what they need and why they are making the choices they do. 

Sensory Education

Everyone uses their senses to explore the world around them and Carronhill learners are no exception. We are very lucky to have our own Sensory Room but sensory education can be explored in all areas of the school, the local environment - inside and outside. 

Communication and Literacy

A fundamental part of our curriculum is communication. Our staff are trained in delivering Intensive Interaction as well as working with Speech and Language therapy to develop communication and language through different systems, Colourful Semantics and a Total Communication approach. Our Total Communication approach includes Makaton, symbolisation and speaking. We understand that our learners are on a journey and that they are individual. 

Numeracy

Many of our learners explore numbers as part of their special interests or to regulate their emotions and we take this further by working to focus on the meaning of numeracy in their world. 

By exploring shape, pattern, sizes, understanding that a digit is a number and that the number can be a quantity displayed in many ways can be a complex concept. Equally the use of money and that one coin can be the equivalent to a number of other coins (often a size that does not sure the bigger quantity) is confusing. We work at the learners pace to secure understanding. 

Health and WellBeing

Throughout the school, the focus of health and wellbeing and personal and social education is to promote independence, as far as the learner can.  This will involve making good healthy choices, including toileting, food choices and exercise. The curriculum supports learners in building up their awareness of good personal hygiene, of hazards and how to keep safe at school, at home and in the community and how to tolerate their growing body. A variety of opportunities will be on offer to our learners including: cycling, water awareness, community involvement, life skills, personal hygiene and healthy eating. There will also be the opportunity to take part in desensitising tasks and deescalation techniques such as quiet time. 

Other Curricular Areas

We provide lots of opportunities in RME, Social Studies and the Expressive Arts, all geared to develop and allow the learners to experience the world around them.  Teachers will always plan to develop Literacy, Numeracy and Health and WellBeing through these experiences. 

The use of IT

The use of IT plays an important part in the lives of our learners. This can be from talkers to switch progression, allowing learners to have a say, make decisions and be heard. IT is seen as a way to give our pupils a voice and a way to explore the world around them. Equally we do believe that communication is supported and developed by a person and that communication is driven by the interaction with people. This means a fine balance between when technology is used and when it is not. 

Learning is fun, frustrating and anything but linear 

Learners learn at their pace and it can often involve little bits of information over a long period of time. At Carronhill we focus on what the learner is doing and work hard to try and achieve the next step in their development.