At Co-op Academy Brierley, we provide our learners with an ambitious and inspiring, knowledge-rich curriculum filled with opportunities for new experiences, retrieval of prior knowledge and questioning of the world around them, to help pupils make connections in their learning.

Overarching Curriculum Intent: Brierley Best Self

 

Our expert teachers offer irresistible learning experiences through predictable and highly scaffolded lessons in which communication and personal well-being are core. 

Show you care 

At Co-op Academy Brierley, relationships and restorative practice are at the core of our school and underpin school life for our children, their families and our staff team. Our ambition is to create a ‘Brierley Best’ learning experience for every child and to support them in achieving their ‘Brierley Best Self’. 

We want to create a personalised learning experience for every child, and we recognise this is achieved through supportive relationships with our families, nurturing relationships with our learners and the expert teaching of our passionate and dedicated staff. 

We want to work with our children restoratively, building trusting and predictable relationships which offer high challenge and high support. Every learner is actively taught ‘Brierley Best behaviour’ expectations for different situations and supported to repair relationships, understand how to keep themselves safe using a total communication approach. 

We want emotional and physical well-being to be integral to the planning and delivery of every learning session, with Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) woven through our curriculum, to ensure every learner has a voice, feels safe and builds their independence towards adulthood. 

We want every moment at Brierley to be a learning moment and our timetables are carefully structured to support learners' emotional regulation, well-being and readiness for learning. We are developing all environments in school to engage our learners' interests and physical literacy, including the Brierley Farm and Gardens, sports and sensory integration resources (rebound, sensory integration rooms, outdoor sensory playground) and our learners nurture in nature through our Forest school. 

We value and support our learners in the context of their families and communities and we want Brierley Best for all our families, which is achieved through strong daily communication with class teachers and outreach support from our pastoral team. 

As a brand new school, we are designing our bespoke curriculum as a school team, with staff at every level within the academy contributing to the design process and holding the developmental needs of our pupils at the forefront of this process.

Be yourself always 

Across all our Pathways we want our Brierley Best learners to be:

• Effective emotional and social communicators, able to communicate consent

• Independent and resilient learners 

• Healthy in body and mind

• Able to form healthy and safe relationships

• Happy and contributing members of their families and community

• Achieving personal potential in core skills, including Literacy and Numeracy 

We want personalisation to be a key driver for our curriculum, and we therefore split into four Pathways to best support the learning needs and holistic development of every learner. This ensures provision is tailored to support their development towards the next stage of learning in small steps of progress (Personalised Learning Goals – PLGs) and towards their preparation for adulthood. 

Our Pathway model

• Foundation

Children enter Co-op Academy Brierley from Reception to Year 2 in our Foundation Pathway to begin their learning journey. We want early play and development to be cherished and valued to enable our youngest children to explore the world around them, build early communication skills and to assess their unique learning needs.

• Informal

Learners in the Informal Pathway thrive with high levels of predictable routines and sensory exploration of the world around them. Pupils in this pathway follow the outcomes of the EYFS, closely matched to the National Curriculum to ensure we are both developmentally appropriate and aspirational in our provision planning. 

• Semi-Formal

Learners in Semi-Formal Pathway access highly adapted formal sessions using visual communication supports and opportunities for movement and sensory integration through continuous provision. Pupils in this pathway follow the National Curriculum, with Literacy, Phonics, Maths and PSHE taught daily Foundation subjects are ‘blocked’ across year into subject weeks. 

• Formal

Learners in Formal Pathway access Literacy, Maths and foundation subjects with Physical Literacy and Wellbeing integral to all sessions. Pupils in this pathway follow the National Curriculum, with Literacy, Phonics/spelling and Maths taught daily and foundation subjects ‘blocked’ across the year into subject weeks, along with a strong focus on enterprise and careers. 

Do what matters most 

As a school, we celebrate our differences and talents, nurturing our children’s self-esteem and building their resilience to take on new challenges through predictable and irresistible learning experiences. We want our learners to experience a range of hands-on learning opportunities through technology, the arts, sports and nature so they are able to make connections in their learning and live full and enriched lives. 

We offer a wide and inspiring curriculum that is aspirational for all of our learners; fosters communication, develops independence, and is personalised to individual pupils needs. Our curriculum is planned in half-term topics and themes are selected carefully to take into consideration our locality, global issues, learners' interests and wherever possible, role models from diverse backgrounds. 

Through Pathway ‘Yearly overviews’, each EYFS/ National Curriculum subject is mapped progressively through a three-year rolling programme, with spaced retrieval opportunities across the topics for learners to re-visit knowledge and make connections in their learning. Daily shared stories are selected within the theme to build subject-specific vocabulary and build core literacy skills in cross-curricular learning. 

Unit plans for all subject areas are planned by subject leaders and adapted by class teachers, with subjects blocked into weeks to support ‘over learning’ and short-term retrieval. Opportunities for spaced retrieval are mapped across themes through knowledge organisers, working walls, continuous provision and subject weeks. 

Each Pathway has created a bespoke timetable with a consistent and predictable sequence to learning. We apply our Brierley pedagogic principles to every session and each Pathway follows a ‘model lesson’ in crafting progressive sessions which offer challenge and build learners' resilience to know ‘they can do hard things’. This is underpinned by the SCERTs domains of Emotional Regulation, Social communication and scaffolded through transactional supports. 

 ‘Progression steps’ for each curriculum area have been rigorously plotted by subject leaders, creating small steps of progress to map pupil attainment, monitor progress over time and plan for next steps in development as a class. 

Communication is at the heart of all we do and vocabulary development is taught systematically through subject specific, core and functional language to build learners oracy and understanding of language in context. Language development is both planned to be progressive and responsive to pupils interests. We use a total communication approach through  ‘say it, see it, sign it’, using visual communication for learners at all stages of communication and visual scaffolds appropriate to their stage of development. 

Personal Social Emotional Development is taught daily through subject specific sessions and woven into every learning experience and session in school. Zones of Regulation are embedded into every session with adult attunement to pupils regulation needs, scaffolded by the SCERTs framework. Physical literacy and movement are integral to every aspect of the school day from the daily mile, sensory circuits, sensory integration, movement breaks, PE sessions and outdoor learning environments. 

We create low sensory, visually clear and immersive learning environments both indoors and out and we find the best teaching resources to enhance the curriculum. Classrooms are streamlined and have clarity of visual learning expectations to support communication and create predictable routines. Continuous provision is clearly organised across each Pathway, giving learners opportunities to consolidate knowledge through independent application and build social skills through collaboration with adults and peers. 

Succeed together 

We want to inspire in pupils a love of learning and of school. We  build our pupils’ cultural capital through a wide range of coherently planned, first-hand experiences, including educational visits and using our developing learning environments to secure knowledge in context.  Every topic begins with a ‘Spectacular Start’, an experience which introduces the language and concepts to be explored within the topic. We end with a ‘Fabulous Finish’ where children celebrate their achievements with parents and trusted adults. Enrichment activities are planned into our exciting topics, and we are working with partner organisations to bring Hyde Park Source, Catch, Phoenix Dance, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, West Yorkshire Playhouse to name a few. 

We want our pupils to make sustained and significant progress and recognise that this is individual to every learner as their starting points and learning needs are all unique. We use Evidence For Learning (EFL) to assess termly against rigorous progression steps which enable teachers to track individual pupil progress, plan for their next steps and target support and intervention. 

Individual targets are described in individual Pupil Passports, which are reviewed termly and a robust programme of monitoring ensures teachers respond to pupils' holistic learning needs. Pupil and parent voice is also integral to our passport reviews, with passports shared with parents at each review point. Reports and communication to families are shared via Class Dojo. 

At Co-op Academy Brierley we are proud of our growing team of expert and dedicated staff. Continuous professional development and training ensures all our staff have the knowledge and expertise to support the needs of all learners in school. Our learners also benefit from bespoke programmes developed by our Occupational Therapy and Speech and language therapy teams.