The Woodlands classes encompass Kisharon School’s informal and semi-formal offer

Learn about Orchards, our formal offer, here

The Woodlands Classes at Kisharon School provide a tailored educational experience, catering to pupils who require either an informal or semi-formal approach. This flexibility ensures that every student can access a curriculum suited to their individual needs, allowing for meaningful engagement and progress.

Informal Curriculum: The Engagement Model

The informal curriculum is designed for pupils who are not yet ready for subject-specific study. It follows the Engagement Model, focusing on building essential early skills like communication, sensory awareness, and interaction. Instead of traditional lessons, these pupils engage in personalised activities that are play-based and sensory-rich, helping them explore their environment in a safe and supportive way. The primary aim is to foster engagement, social interaction and self-regulation, enabling pupils to develop foundational skills that form the basis for future learning. The informal curriculum is highly responsive, adapting to the interests and abilities of each student, ensuring they feel secure and motivated to participate actively.

Semi-Formal Curriculum: Thematic Learning with Core Subjects

For pupils ready for a more structured learning approach, the semi-formal curriculum offers distinct teaching in English and Mathematics, alongside a broader thematic curriculum. This model balances structured learning in core subjects with a creative, inquiry-based approach in other areas. The thematic units are designed around the principles of the Learning Challenge curriculum, which uses a question-led approach to stimulate curiosity and deeper understanding.

Each half-term, pupils explore a ‘Big Question,’ which guides the learning journey and links to various National Curriculum subjects.
The curriculum emphasises broad and balanced coverage, ensuring pupils gain essential knowledge across a range of topics. Lessons incorporate activities that reinforce prior learning, using recall and retrieval strategies to help pupils consolidate and embed their understanding. This focus on deep learning supports the development of long-term knowledge retention.

Planning and Progression

Kisharon School’s curriculum in the Woodlands Classes is carefully structured to promote excellent learning outcomes. It follows a planned journey for each subject, with clear learning objectives that outline what pupils need to know, understand, and do to achieve their goals. The curriculum draws on the National Curriculum as a reference, but is adapted to the pupils’ context, as well as the individual targets from their EHCPs, ensuring relevance and engagement. By tracking progress against clear milestones, the school ensures that all pupils cover the necessary content and achieve high standards throughout their time with us.

The Woodlands Classes offer a supportive, adaptive environment that nurtures individual growth, enabling pupils to thrive on their unique educational journey.