We are a small school which aims to provide a family atmosphere where pupils and families feel supported this enables us to take a holistic approach to the child’s learning journey. We work as part of a team, to offer a nurturing environment where pupils can develop to their full potential. This is facilitated by working closely with families and other agencies to provide a holistic learning experience for our pupils. We are all responsible for contributing to our learning community.
At Phoenix Arch we value and respect children as individuals, we adopt a nurturing caring, and united approach to support all children to succeed and achieve in their learning. We encourage children to form positive relationships, know what their rights are, and take responsibility for their role within the school and the wider community. Our vision is one of an environment encompassing a creative exciting and inspirational learning community.
The curriculum at Phoenix Arch has been developed to allow teachers to be creative and make the learning journey of pupils stimulating and exciting. There is a two-year rolling plan to ensure the curriculum remains interesting and challenging. It is designed to promote effective planning with careful sequencing of content which builds on previous knowledge, learning, and achievement. It can be adapted to suit the different learning styles of pupils thereby providing personalized learning opportunities.
The school understands that unstructured playtimes can often be the most challenging for pupils. We, therefore, use this time as structured learning time which is planned and assessed as part of the child’s learning journey. Play is highly supervised by staff and pupils are encouraged to join a range of activities. Pupils are encouraged to make choices and develop friendships and support each other across the school.
Every week Key Stage 2 pupils take part in Enrichment activities. These sessions are planned for and develop cross-curricular links involving life skills. Pupils are mixed into social family groups. This enables pupils to develop links across the school and work with different staff and pupils developing relationships outside of their class environment. Recent activities have included designing skateboards. This involved researching and costing equipment. Pupils put forward a case to justify the cost and went on the design and build their skateboards. This was teamed with a project on graffiti which had a strong PSHE element as well as Art. Other activities have included multicultural cooking involving costing, shopping, budgeting, and healthy eating.
This is a very valuable approach to developing our whole school approach to supporting each other to work collaboratively in a family-like atmosphere.
Our new-build was completed on time in February 2015. Since then it has developed to provide creative learning spaces including therapy rooms. It now provides additional facilities for our pupils and families.
Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) at our school aims to provide full speech and language assessment, diagnosis (where appropriate), and intervention strategies for children with communication difficulties as an integral part of their educational life.
The school is housed in a building which is refurbished accommodation and a substantial new build which is expected to complete the school’s facilities. This project has been planned for some time and once finished will offer greater facilities for our pupils and families. The new area will provide much-needed therapy rooms, an art room, and a sensory room. We will also have a music room which will double up as our community room.
The whole school curriculum takes into account the specific learning difficulties of the pupils and their learning styles and encompasses communication the core and foundation subjects of the National Curriculum Religious Education Personal, Social and Health Education and Citizenship. Signing, symbols, pictures/photographs, speech, and gestures are all used to develop each pupil’s communication skills.
