Autistic Day School - Our Curriculum
Working within the Framework of the National Curriculum
At Eagle House School (Mitcham) Autistic Day School, we aim to give every child equality of opportunity through a broad and balanced curriculum. We work within the framework of the National Curriculum which pays regard to the core subjects: English; Maths; Science; Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) and Information Communication Technology (ICT). Also to the foundation subjects: Geography; Music; PE; Art; Design technology (DT) and History. Religious Education is also an area of study but it is not a National Curriculum subject.
Literacy and Numeracy
We aim to incorporate the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies into our Primary Department planning and teaching. Literacy and numeracy are integrated into the normal good practice of our teaching day. During the first few weeks in school, children undergo baseline assessments, which give us an idea of where individual children are starting from. Teachers continually evaluate children's work and record their progress.
Our aim is to consider the whole child's global development; our teaching is designed to build upon and develop the social, physical, emotional and intellectual abilities of our children. We identify individual needs and plan work and activities which develop the child in a progressive way. We base our teaching on a variety of approaches, choosing the most effective for each child.
There is a strong emphasis on a multi professional approach which provides a unique approach to teaching and learning. The Eagle House Approach starts with the individual at its core then builds layer by layer to produce a unique and distinctive multi-dimensional framework around the child with contribututions from all involved professionals.
The approaches we use include:
- TEACCH
- SPELL
- Visual support strategies
- Picture Exchange Communication Systems (PECS)
- Makaton/Sign
- Social Stories/Comic & cartoon scripts
- Drama
- Intensive Interaction
- Sensory Diet/Alert Programmes
- Physical exercise
Each child is taught in a way that meets their learning style using a combination of the above strategies. Weaim to make the curriculum as existential as we can for each child through as much experimental and hands-on teaching as possible. We also help our children to learn in a variety of settings which helps our pupils to generalise new skills outside of the school environment.
Our teaching is presented visually to suit the learning styles of our children and special emphasis is given to supporting our children through transitions with the aid of visual timetables.