Pathways

Juniper 

Willow 

Oak 

Learners on the Juniper Pathway have  

significant difficulties coping with stress 

affecting their ability to feel safe and 

comfortable within their own bodies, their 

environment and around others. This means they struggle to learn in a group and require a highly individualised learning offer. 

Learners on the Willow Pathway learn through sensory-motor exploration, intensive interaction and repetition. Their regulation and social differences mean they require high levels of support to work alongside others and build on previously learnt skills. 

Learners on the Oak Pathway generally cope with learning as a class group but they 

require high levels of adult support to regulate, engage in learning and interact with their peers as part of a social group. With this support they are able to generalise skills across learning contexts. 

Cognition and learning  

Learners find it challenging attending to and engaging with their everyday learning environment and the world around them due to high levels of stress. They demonstrate sustained attention and enjoy self-directed activities, and can find it difficult to focus their attention on tasks that are outside of their personal preferences or are adult-directed, where they demonstrate fleeting attention for very short periods of time.  

Communication & Language 

Learners predominantly communicate unconventionally for a narrow range of communication functions. Communication can often involve the use of maladaptive stress behaviours.  Learners rely heavily on attuned adults who know them well to understand their communication attempts, interpret these and model adaptive communication strategies as an alternative.    

Social, Emotional & Mental Health 

Learners are starting to build trusting relationships with adults, developing their understanding that adults can be there to help and they may often be aware of their peers but not yet have intent to interact with them. Learners are still developing their independence in regulation, and so are still dependent on adults to support understanding of calm, through co-regulation strategies. Learners are developing their regulation toolbox, exploring a range of regulation strategies with attuned adults across the five domains. Learners often find it challenging to identify and reduce their own stressors and need adults to understand when their energy levels are depleting and need adults to recognise what strategies will work for them. Learners find it challenging to understand and express a range of emotions conventionally.  

Physical, Sensory & Health 

Learners display delayed body awareness, impacting on their ability to access gross motor activities and may present with movement differences therefore they can find themselves in repetitive cycles at times. Learners may present with reduced postural activation needed for seated activities. Learners may present with high sensory needs, impacting their ability to sustain their attention and focus. They are fully aided by adults for nearly all aspects of daily living activities and can find it difficult to follow a sequence of steps due to attention and interest, regulation or complexity of the task. They require small steps to develop the ability to actively participate in these tasks and require close adult supervision and support to keep them and others safe across contexts.  

Independence 

Learners in this cohort are fully aided by adults for all aspects of daily living activities and require small steps to develop their ability to actively participate in aspects of these tasks.

Cognition & Learning 

Learners find it challenging to engage in activities outside of their interests. They are beginning to engage and show interest in a wider range of activities through exploratory sensorimotor and relational based activities. The learner’s curiosity of the world is not yet driving their learning experiences and their sensory motor fixations often have an impact on their engagement in a wider variety of learning opportunities. They can maintain attention on a limited range of highly preferred activities for short periods and are beginning to attend and attribute meaning to activities linked to areas of interest. Learners are beginning to develop emergent literacy and numeracy skills and apply these skills through functional activities that are motivating to individual students. They are beginning to develop an understanding of core learning through practical learning experiences. 

Communication & Language 

Learners are beginning to attend to and attribute meaning to activities linked to areas of interest, this is often fleeting and need repetition and support to sustain interactions to expand on learning concepts. They have an emerging understanding of the purpose of communication. This can be through the use of communication systems, body language and/ or speech.  

Social, Emotional & Mental Health 

Learners are beginning to understand through cause and effect their role as a social partner. They require support, modelling and repetition to engage in circles of communication beyond highly motivating activities and people. Learners need high levels of support to utilise co regulation support and develop their ability to self regulate. Learners in this cohort often have a narrower toolkit of strategies to support attaining a regulated state and require the support of highly attuned adults to enable them to access the toolkit.  

This cohort can often self occupy in relation to their own self interests, however they have limited awareness of when engaging in these have become a stressor if engaged in for long periods, or when transitioning away from them.  

Physical, Sensory & Health 

Gross and fine motor skills /  development are often impacted by the learner’s difficulties with motivation and sustained practice of tasks. Learners often require scaffolding and repetition to plan and sequence new motor tasks. Learners often require support with toileting; may have interoception awareness at times (e.g. during the day) but may still have accidents or require support at night 

Independence 

Learners engage in small steps of daily living activities and require support from adults to structure and scaffold learning and provide physical support.  

Cognition and learning 

Learners are able to attend to adult led learning tasks across a range of subjects and curriculum areas. Their attention to these tasks would be consistent throughout the day but may vary in length of time that it can be sustained, depending on it being a preferred or less preferred activity. This learning may take place in a group, paired, or at times individualised with adult support. 

Learners in this pathway can readily engage in novel learning experiences, consolidating previously learnt skills whilst also developing new ones. They would be beginning to generalise skills across contexts and may be able to show inference around learning but this may be emerging. Learners would have an understanding of routines and sequences throughout their day e.g. swimming is on Wednesday, after lunch we do massage. 

Learners may still be developing early numeracy and literacy skills, but many would be moving onto more conventional literacy learning and being able to apply their numeracy and literacy skill to functional tasks. They would be generalising these skills in a range of learning activities both in school and the community. 

Learners would work on developing an understanding of basic safety concepts such as road safety and hot surfaces. Students will  be able access a range of school and community locations safely with full adult support. This will be as part of a class group. 

Communication and language 

Learners in this pathway will know the purpose of a communication system and use this with increasing intention and skill with adult support. They will intentionally and conventionally communicate (total communication) for a wide range of early communication functions but may have limited higher level language skills. They will have a consistent yes/no, be able to make choices and be able to open and close several circles of communication to initiate and maintain an interaction. These skills may not be present in newer social situations or when experiencing stress. 

Social, Emotional & Mental Health 

Learners show increasing interest and friendships with peers but often  have difficulties with the shared problem solving required for sustained play & to resolve conflict. They are generally able to explore and engage in a range of play and leisure interests and begin to explore new activities when presented the opportunity to. Learners would be comfortable with parallel and shared play and be open to new play ideas being modelled. This cohort have an emerging awareness of stress within their body and are beginning to engage with known regulation strategies when supported by familiar attuned adults.  

Physical and sensory  

Students can access a range of physical activities inside and outside of school. These are often preferred activities such as swimming, walking and PE games. This would be for a considerable length of time (over 10 minutes). They would be increasingly independent in activities of daily living; requiring individualised support from adults for scaffolding, problem solving, and persistence through tasks. They would be on the journey to being fully toilet trained and have some understanding of introception  skills. Learners would be able to complete several step sequences but may require adult support due to limited praxis and motor skills or maintaining attention and motivation for the task.

• Foundational skills are taught across all curriculum areas but with subject specific activities to cover breadth and depth of curriculum  
• Learning can happen ‘on the go’ or wherever the learner is.  
• A large part of the learning will be focused on regulation and well-being 
• Lots of opportunities to access learning through play or free flow environments with adults honing in on the learners interest to build their engagement.  
• Large majority of the learners' day will be led by them and their interests and access most of their learning ‘on the go’ or outside of a classroom setting and often learn through exploration, discovery and incidental learning.   
• Focus on overlearning and repetition with lots of variety.  
• Approaches such as Attention Autism used to support building sustained and joint attention.  
• Understanding is supported through highly individualised multi-modal communication resources (e.g. touch/tactile, visual, auditory, symbols) consistently used throughout their day; learners explicitly taught the meaning of everyday objects and activities through their daily routines  
• Access to the community and a variety of activities to increase their access to the world and applying learnt skills functionally.  
• Learning will primarily be sensory based and through exploration 
• A focus on early safety skills and independence, engaging and participating within these all everyday routines.  
• Building trusting relationships with a range of adults, understanding that adults are there to help, will be central to learning
• Developing intentional natural communication  through any means possible through the attributed meaning placed on their communication by adults including communicating preferences consistently 
• Supporting pupils to explore, realise, anticipate, persist, respond and initiate within meaningful relationships and activities  
• Expand interests through varied play and leisure opportunities  
• Adults attribute meaning to pupils signs of stress and support them to gain the attention of adults and protest adaptively so their needs can be supported 
• High levels of consideration into the physical and sensory needs of learners including appropriate positioning, adaptive equipment, and programs from a range of professionals.  
• Participation and consent in all aspects of personal care is a strong focus during all activities across the school day.

• A large proportion of the day is spent maintaining and consolidating skills learners have already learnt so as not to lose skills and understanding. The objectives, targets, sessions and evaluations will reflect this repetition. New concepts and understandings will be taught, when appropriate, in the framework of a familiar and structured session or activity. 
• Consistency in the presentation/communication of learning is at the centre of their curriculum. This can include inviting participation indirectly to reduce demands, reducing prompting to avoid passivity. Engagement is often done through exploration and observation to begin with, before moving into more active participation and finally developing greater independence.  
• Small opportunities to work in a group (outside of snack). 
• Developing adaptive communication / regulation skills are very difficult for learners on this pathway and often require intensive support in all environments. 
• Expand interests through varied play and leisure opportunities, using strategies such as DIR floortime and intensive interaction 
• Learners can require support to recognise signs of stress and require adult support to regulate. Adults model identifying signs of stress and interoception and model communicating communicating and requesting support to regulate using adaptive strategies. 
• High levels of consideration into the sensory and environmental needs of learners including layout of learning environment, adults supporting and preferred places and positions to work. 
• Learners will continue to need lots of facilitated/scaffolded opportunities to broaden their experiences and embed their learning. This is through a nurturing environment that continues to open up their wider world via skill focused learning with the ability to generalise to novel activities. 

• A combination approach of focusing on maintaining and consolidating skills learners have already learnt (so as not to lose skills and understanding) as well as introducing new concepts, ideas and learning building on their current knowledge and lived experiences. The objectives, targets, sessions and evaluations will reflect this repetition.  
• Consistency in the presentation/communication of learning is at the centre of their curriculum. This can include inviting participation indirectly to reduce demands, reducing prompting to avoid passivity. 
• Many opportunities to work in a group with break out spaces and regulation spaces available to support arousal and readiness to learn in a group setting. 
• Students would be supported to develop adaptive communication / regulation skills through exposure and repetition. 
• Expand interests through varied age appropriate play and leisure opportunities  
• Learners recognise what calm and alert feels like at times, along with stress and understand what strategies they can use to manage arousal levels with supports from familiar adults and visuals (co-regulation moving to self-regulation at times). A developing understanding of interoception is occurring. 
• Consideration into the sensory and environmental needs of learners including layout of learning environment, adults supporting and preferred places and positions to work at times. 
• Learners will continue to need lots of facilitated/scaffolded opportunities to broaden their experiences and embed their learning. This is through a nurturing environment that continues to open up their wider world via skill focused learning with the ability to generalise to novel activities 

The needs of this cohort are met on our Sherwood Hill Campus. The learners complex regulation needs on this campus mean that this campus would not be appropriate for a pupil with complex physical access needs linked with risk management and safety.  

Sherwood Hill Campus is a purpose built school to cater for the specialised learning needs of autistic children and young people.  The school has been designed to be a low arousal environment with calming acoustics. The 13 classes have access to a range of quiet rooms for learning and quiet rooms to support regulation.  There is a purpose built sensory room, soft play room, sensory gym and regulation room with access to suspended equipment. There is also a music room, library and life skills room. Outdoor areas include early years play grounds, inset trampolines, birds nest swings and a purpose build playground including climbing, exercise and games equipment.  Children who need it also have access to the swimming pool on the Sherwood Park Campus in the primary department and local swimming pool in the secondary department.  NHS nursing is available at a mainstream commissioning level at Sherwood Hill Campus with once weekly visits to site.  

There is a focus on equipment and resources that are supportive for autistic children and young people, including regulation equipment (specialist swings, trampettes, gym balls, weighted & deep pressure equipment, chewys, sensory toys & quickshift music etc), transactional supports (visuals, now-next-then boards etc) and highly specialist communication systems (low tech & high tech).

Lower (EYFS, KS1, KS2) 

• Exploratory based learning looking at building up a range of interests and activities.  
• Exploratory well-being sessions with a focus on accepting co-regulation and a range of strategies across the 5 domains.  
• Developing an early understanding of their bodies and as they move into KS2, changes that will happen.  
• Access to the community weekly with high levels of adult support.  
• Learning through play early safety concepts such as playful waiting, stop and go games etc.  
• Statutory swimming.  

Middle (KS2, KS3, KS4) 

• Accessing learning through known interests.  
• Access to learning which is more functional and looking at applying known skills.  
• Focus on beginning to recognise stressors and exerting autonomy through choosing of regulation strategies.  
• Developing an understanding of my changing body, how it feels and its functions to keep myself safe through sex education.  
• KS2 - statutory swimming  
• Access to community activities to develop a greater range of leisure activities as well as support well-being 
• Access to the community to start to develop life skills, such as road safety skills,  shopping skills,  etc. 

Upper (KS4, KS5) 

• Shift to working on vocational studies and preparation for adulthood at the forefront of learning.  
• Broadening my range of leisure activities.  
• Work experience opportunities 
• Opportunities to develop life skills such as paying for items, keeping clean, cooking etc.  
• Enterprise engagement thinking about early working skills  
• Developing an understanding of my body, how it feels, its functions, different relationships and how to keep myself safe through sex education.  
• Access to the community to further develop independence and life skills, such as shopping  

Lower (EYFS, KS1, KS2) 

• Identifying & expanding interests 
• Recognising people are safe and interesting to promote social interactions 
• Learning of routines and high frequency vocabulary supported with objects, pictures and symbols 
• Learning through song and play 
• Understanding of key concepts such as hot/cold, body parts and developing a yes/no 
• Learning what it feels like to feel calm and regulated for short periods with a high level of adult support 

Middle (KS2, KS3, KS4) 

• Expanding interests 
• Understanding and participating on a work-choose-regulation cycle with support 
• Learning through age appropriate song and play 
• Increasing independence with routines through visual aids 
• Understanding of key concepts such as hot/cold, clean/dirty, body parts and securing a yes/no  
• Increased autonomy through expressive choice making (e.g. locations, activities) 
• Learning related to puberty and self-help 
• Begin access to the community and understanding social boundaries in wider contexts with support 

Upper (KS4, KS5) 

• Continue to understand key concepts related to literacy, numeracy and safety across all contexts 
• Developing more community access, linked to vocational interests and developing a purposeful role in society with post-19 educational options in mind. 
• Securing interests and how these may feed into work experience and vocational interests 
• Securing access to the community and have a greater understanding of social boundaries in wider contexts 
• Using a clear and consistent yes/no and use of other preferred symbols  

Lower (EYFS, KS1, KS2) 

• Identifying & expanding interests 
• Recognising people are safe and interesting to promote extended social interactions 
• Learning of routines and high frequency vocabulary supported with objects, pictures and symbols 
• Learning through song and play in small groups and individually  
• Understanding of key concepts such as hot/cold, body parts and developing a yes/no 
• Supported to communicate about the here and now using gesture, symbols and/or words 
• Learning what it feels like to feel calm and regulated for short periods with adult and environmental supports 

Middle (KS2, KS3, KS4) 

• Expanding interests and developing deeper understanding of identified interests - linking more formal learning to interests 
• Understanding and participating on a work-choose-regulation cycle with support 
• Learning through age appropriate song and play 
• Increasing independence with routines through visual aids 
• Understanding of key concepts such as hot/cold, clean/dirty, body parts and securing a yes/no, stop/go. 
• Increased autonomy through expressive language development beyond the here and now 
• Learning related to puberty and self-help, public and private, consent.  
• Begin access to the community and understanding social boundaries in wider contexts with support 

Upper (KS4, KS5) 

Links to ASDAN programmes of study  

• Community 
• Independent living  
• Good health 
• Employment  
• Safety in the home and community  
• Functional skills  cooking 
• Cleaning our home 
• Personal Hygiene  

At least 3x weekly trips into the community - accessing public transport, walking to environments, travel training.  

Continue to develop key concepts related to literacy, numeracy and safety across all contexts 

Developing more community access, linked to vocational interests and developing a purposeful role in society with post-19 educational options in mind. 

Securing interests and how these may feed into work experience and vocational interests 

Securing access to the community  and use of public transport and have a greater understanding of social boundaries in wider contexts 

Using a clear and consistent yes/no and use of other preferred symbols and AAC 

For this pathway we may explore the use of components PLPs which differ from the traditional termly targets, measuring progress against all yearly targets at two points during the academic year.  

For this pathway we may utilise either the Engagement model or MAPP assessment to determine whether PLPs have been achieved.  

For this pathway MAPP assessment would be utilised to determine whether PLPs have been achieved.  

• Employment 

We have high aspirations for our learners. All will have gained accreditation in  units in ASDAN yearly which encompasses vocational skills, independent living skills and world studies. Learners across our cohorts may go on to explore Further Education to continue study in an area of interest and/or to build upon the vocational and independence skills they have gained throughout their time at Sherwood Hill. Some learners may go straight on to supported employment, including apprenticeships and traineeships. By the time they leave Sherwood Hill, learners will all have completed comprehensive transition programmes at their new education or vocational provision. 

Upon leaving Sherwood Hill, all learners will have completed some real-life work experience in an area that interests them. This can take place in many different forms, such as work tasters, volunteering, a one-day-a-week work placement or a supported internship. The completion of a Vocational Profile will enable a smooth transition to Further Education and will enable their learned skills and aspirations to be built upon and developed. 

• Independent Living 

We aim to give all of our learners the tools they need to live as independent lives as possible. Learners are likely to need lifelong support to varying degrees in order to lead fulfilled and integrated adult lives, however we do not view this as a barrier. Liaison with Social Care services, from when a young person reaches year 9, enables information to be shared and processes put in place early to set up and sustain respite opportunities, social inclusion and leisure groups as well as housing options that may enable a young person to remain in the family home for longer, or move out into supported accommodation with peers. Social partnerships and/ or friendships between learners are nurtured, as well as relationships between parents and carers, so that they can continue to flourish beyond the classroom. 

• Community Inclusion 

Sherwood Hill prepares children for community inclusion and access from EYFS through to our Post 16 provision. We support young people to access the community through a variety of transport methods e.g. walking, school and public transport. As our young people move through the key stages we increase the number of locations that they access and support them to explore different functions of social inclusion including to pursuit leisure pursuits e.g. gym or library or accessing social spaces e.g. cafes and restaurants.  

• Health 

We aim for all children to have an understanding of their own health needs and for this information to be available in their vocational profile. We also aim for all pupils to leave with a hospital/ medical passport to support any potential future medical appointments.