Curriculum, Teaching and Assessment

1. Purpose

Our curriculum has one aim, which is the one commissioning local authorities pay for: young people who are calm and focused enough to learn, ready to return to school or move on to post-16, and able to manage their own focus, sleep and phones for life.

This policy explains how we deliver that aim through RESET, our therapeutic curriculum, built on a core of English, maths, science and IT planned and led by qualified teachers. It sets the minimum standards every learner can expect and that the commissioning local authority can check.

2. Scope

This policy applies to every learner in Care Cove Alternative Provision, whoever commissions the place, and to everyone who teaches or supports learning: teachers, mentors, learning support assistants, counsellors when they contribute to lessons, agency teachers, coaches, vocational tutors and volunteers.

Care Cove is not registered with Ofsted as an independent school and does not provide full-time education. Each learner attends 2 or 3 days a week alongside their main education arrangement, which the school or local authority remains responsible for. Our curriculum is designed to fit alongside that arrangement and to support a return to it.

3. Law and guidance

• Commissioning local authority specifications. At least 5 hours of curriculum a day, half of it core (maths, English, science and IT), based on the National Curriculum and planned and led by a teacher with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS); adjusted for each child to give access, progression and stretch and to close gaps; Functional Skills and GCSE access at Key Stage 4; and a structured personal development programme covering careers, social and emotional learning and behaviour, independence including financial wellbeing, and PE.

• National Curriculum in England (2014 programmes of study). A revised curriculum is expected to be published in 2027 for first teaching from September 2028.

• DfE Alternative Provision statutory guidance (2013).

• Relationships, Sex and Health Education statutory guidance (revised, in effect from 1 September 2026, including misogyny, AI and deepfakes). It applies to schools and pupil referral units; we follow it voluntarily.

• DfE careers guidance and the Gatsby Benchmarks (updated 2025).

• DfE generative AI in education guidance; JCQ regulations and awarding body rules, including on AI in assessments.

4. Roles and responsibilities

• The Head of AP (QTS) is the curriculum lead: curriculum, schemes of work and timetable, the careers programme, lesson observation, the half-termly teacher review and reporting on curriculum quality.

• The QTS teachers (the Head of AP and the DSL, plus any QTS agency teacher) plan and teach core subjects and manage Key Stage 4 entries. The DSL leads assessment, gap analysis and individual educational planning.

• Everyone employed or engaged as a teacher holds QTS, as the specification requires, including First Class Teachers agency teachers. QTS is checked with the Teaching Regulation Agency before the teacher starts and recorded on the Single Central Record. Mentors and learning support assistants support core lessons but never plan or lead them. If a QTS teacher is absent, the Head of AP arranges QTS cover through First Class Teachers or rearranges the day so that core blocks stay QTS-led within ratio. Any core session that could not be QTS-led is recorded on Connect and caught up.

• The SEND lead makes sure teaching is adapted for learners with SEND.

• Key mentors and learning support assistants support learning, lead personal development sessions to the Head of AP's plans, and run check-in and Close Out.

• Coaches and vocational tutors deliver sessions to the Head of AP's plans, always alongside Care Cove staff.

• Counsellors review the Stillness practices and advise on sensitive topics.

• The Director resources the curriculum, including exam entries, assessment licences and the exam centre partnership.

5. Curriculum intent: RESET

RESET is built on five pillars, Respect, Energy, Stillness, Effort and Tech mastery, with a sixth thread, Future, running through all of them. Each pillar has a daily routine learners can name. All of it rests on qualified teaching, weekly therapy and adults who are warm and firm at the same time.

Standards are high and held calmly. Strict means clear, consistent and predictable, never loud, public or humiliating. Every learner learns the Respect Code on day one (I respect myself; I respect everyone here; I respect this place). How we respond when it is broken is set out in Behaviour, Rewards and Restorative Practice.

6. The day and curriculum hours

6.1 The day

6.2 Hours

The therapy hour sits inside the personal development half of the day as social and emotional support. Therapy is never timetabled during a core block, so no learner loses core teaching for a session. Connect calculates curriculum hours and the QTS-led core share from the timetable, and the Head of AP checks the figures every week.

6.3 Core rotation

Core blocks rotate so that every learner gets equal maths and English, and equal science and IT, across each fortnight, whether they attend 2 or 3 days. An example pattern:

Connect tracks each learner's core sessions by subject. If a learner's attendance pattern or an absence leaves an imbalance, the Head of AP adjusts that learner's rotation the following week.

7. Core curriculum

Core subjects follow the National Curriculum programmes of study and are planned and led by QTS teachers. Teaching starts from each learner's baseline, so it fills gaps rather than repeating what failed. Work is pitched against age-related expectations and adjusted for each learner so it is both accessible and stretching. RESET gives the content a reason: learners study their own brains, sleep, food and phones.

Where a Key Stage 4 learner's aspirations need it, we arrange tuition beyond the core subjects through our QTS teachers or First Class Teachers.

Teaching methods run through all four subjects: trauma-informed practice, Talk for Writing in English, Now and Next boards for learners who need them, SCERTS for learners with communication needs, Skills Builder for essential skills, Focus Sprints, and outdoor education. Laptops are used with purpose, on managed devices with filtering and monitoring (see Online Safety and Acceptable Use). Learners use generative AI tools only when a teacher has set the task, and never in accredited work except as the awarding body's rules allow.

8. Personal development curriculum

8.1 How RESET covers the specification

8.2 Six rolling themes

Each half term has one theme linking the core subjects to a pillar. The cycle rolls, so a learner can join at any point; a two-term placement covers four themes. Year 11 GCSE and Functional Skills work runs alongside.

8.3 Physical literacy and PE

Many of our learners have stopped doing PE altogether. The aim is confidence, skills and motivation to keep moving, not sporting talent. PE follows the National Curriculum programme of study: tactics in games (basketball, coached with Dream Chasers coaches), technique and personal bests (non-contact boxing fitness pad work), outdoor and adventurous activity (bouldering at Pound's Park, orienteering), evaluating performance and links to community clubs. We build four elements: Move (physical skills), Connect (fair play and teamwork), Think (tactics and planning) and Feel (confidence and enjoyment). Movement is used to regulate, never as a punishment.

Every learner leaves with a Move Plan: one activity, a named place or club and how to get there. Sport is a route into the curriculum, never a substitute for taught hours.

8.4 Nutrition and cooking

Lessons follow the cooking and nutrition strand of Key Stage 3 design and technology and link to science: the Eatwell Guide, food for focus, reading labels, cooking mainly savoury dishes from scratch, budgeting, food safety (towards Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene) and food from learners' own cultures. Weekly cooking takes place in our kitchen under the Food Safety, Allergens and Nutrition policy.

Nutrition is taught safely. Staff never talk with learners about weight, calories, dieting or "good" and "bad" foods, and nobody is weighed or measured. If a learner shows signs of disordered eating, the Clinical Advisor advises before any approach is agreed.

8.5 Relationships, sex and health education (RSHE)

• RSHE is taught mainly through the Respect, Energy, Stillness and Tech mastery pillars. It covers the content of the revised statutory guidance, including healthy relationships, consent, misogyny and violence against women and girls, online safety, AI and deepfakes, mental health and personal safety.

• At the start of each placement, the Head of AP agrees with the referring school what RSHE the learner has covered and what they will cover with us, so they neither miss nor repeat it. The agreement is recorded on Connect.

• We share our RSHE content with parents and carers and show them teaching materials on request. Where a parent has asked the school to withdraw their child from sex education, we follow the school's decision and the statutory rules.

• Sensitive topics are flagged to learners in advance. Staff use ground rules and distancing techniques (stories and scenarios rather than personal questions). The key mentor and counsellor are told beforehand where a learner may be personally affected. Any disclosure goes to the DSL straight away under Safeguarding and Child Protection.

8.6 Careers education and guidance

The Head of AP leads a careers programme built on the Gatsby Benchmarks, with careers targets in every plan.

Parents are invited to Pitch Day and to post-16 planning meetings. Every Year 11 leaver has a post-16 plan, with visits to and handover to their destination, and we follow up destinations at 18 months.

8.7 Teaching Stillness safely

The MYRIAD trial, a large study of mindfulness training in UK secondary schools, found it was no better than usual social and emotional teaching and suggested some pupils already at risk of mental health problems may have done worse. Many of our learners have lived through trauma, and silence or closed eyes can feel unsafe. So mindfulness here is short, practical and chosen:

• Practices last 60 to 90 seconds at first and never more than 5 minutes.

• Eyes open is always fine. Learners choose their anchor: breath, feet on the floor, a sound or an object.

• Breathing and grounding come before anything like meditation.

• Taking part is optional, and stillness is never used as a punishment or a consequence.

• Our counsellors review every practice before it is used. Any learner who becomes distressed is followed up the same day by their key mentor, who tells the counsellor and, if there is a concern, the DSL.

• After a few weeks, learners lead the Reset Minute themselves.

9. Outdoor learning and vocational tasters

Pound's Park, Devonshire Green, the Peace Gardens, the Winter Garden, the Millennium and Graves galleries, Central Library and the Heart of the City area are timetabled outdoor classrooms with learning objectives, not places to go when the day is not working. Every session follows Off-site Learning and Educational Visits (written risk assessment, named lead, ratio no lower than on site, defined route, learner-specific risk checked first, one member of staff on site). Every learner gets a library membership, and travel training uses the same routes.

Vocational tasters in construction, hospitality and catering, barbering and beauty, motor vehicle, sport and coaching, and digital and media run in the Move slot, with employer partners, under Work Experience and Vocational Placements.

10. Accreditation and exams

Care Cove does not yet hold exam centre approval in its own name. Until it does, learners are entered through a partner approved centre, or through their own school where they are on roll. The Head of AP agrees with each school who enters the learner and who pays, so nobody is entered twice. Entries we arrange are paid for by Care Cove, never by families. Our roadmap is an ASDAN membership application in the first half term, an ASDAN Centre Approval Visit within two terms, and NCFE centre approval and a National Centre Number within the first academic year. Exam access arrangements are set out in the SEND policy.

11. Assessment

11.1 Baseline within 2 weeks

Every learner is baselined within 2 weeks of starting: reading age and numeracy age with gap analysis, subject baselines against prior attainment, the Boxall Profile, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (learner and parent), a learner voice interview, Skills Builder, attendance history, a physical literacy self-rating and a two-week Sleep Lab diary. The results set the starting point for teaching and the targets in the Mini-PATHs plan, which is in place within 4 weeks.

11.2 Ongoing assessment

Feedback is mainly spoken and immediate. Learners respond to it in the lesson. We never rank learners or display results publicly.

11.3 Re-baselining and reporting

• Attainment (reading, numeracy and subject progress) and the Boxall Profile are re-measured every half term.

• The SDQ and Skills Builder are re-measured every term; physical literacy and sleep each half term.

• The plan is reviewed at least monthly, as the specification requires, with progress discussed at the monthly meeting with the commissioning local authority's Access and Inclusion Officers (or with the commissioning school). The plan is formally reviewed at least every half term.

• Families get a weekly RESET postcard through the Family portal naming one thing the learner did well, and see progress against targets.

• Referring schools see attendance and progress through the Partner portal, with a written progress summary each half term.

• Results feed the half-termly monitoring report and the termly KPI report, including the 90% target for progress towards plan outcomes.

12. Continuity of learning with the referring school

• At referral, the Head of AP asks the school for the learner's curriculum map, exam boards and tiers, coursework status and recent assessment data.

• For on-roll learners we align topics with the school where we can, especially Year 10 and 11 GCSE content, and share work samples each half term. The school is invited to visit the learner and join reviews.

• The RESET Passport, recording the pillar badges a learner has earned, goes with them to their next school.

• The written strategy guidance to the receiving school includes academic progress, remaining gaps, accreditation in progress and the teaching approaches that work.

13. Quality assurance

• Lesson observation with written feedback: every teacher at least once a half term, and agency teachers in their first week. The Head of AP observes; the Head of AP's own lessons are observed by the other QTS teacher.

• Work scrutiny of a sample of learner folders in each core subject: half-termly.

• Teacher performance and practice review with the Head of AP: half-termly.

• Curriculum hours and QTS-led core share checked from Connect: weekly.

• Learner views on lessons through the half-termly survey and termly pupil forum.

• Curriculum report from the Head of AP to the Director at monthly management supervision.

Commissioning local authorities may review curriculum plans, timetables and schemes of work at any time, and may carry out observation or moderation visits agreed in advance. We welcome them.

14. Monitoring and review

• RESET itself is reviewed at the end of the first full term, at Easter 2027: which routines learners rate, which measures moved, and what to change. The review is led by the Head of AP and reported to the Director and the SWMC.

• Every scheme of work is re-checked when the revised National Curriculum programmes of study are published.

• Curriculum and attainment data are reported to the commissioning local authority at half-termly monitoring meetings and in the termly KPI report.

• This policy is ratified by the SWMC and reviewed every year, or sooner after an incident, a change in law or statutory guidance or a contract change. It is available to the commissioning local authority at any time.

15. Related policies

• 01 Safeguarding and Child Protection
• 06 Online Safety and Acceptable Use
• 07 Behaviour, Rewards and Restorative Practice
• 10 Mobile Phones and Digital Devices
• 12 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
• 14 Therapeutic Practice and Clinical Governance
• 18 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• 25 Food Safety, Allergens and Nutrition
• 26 Off-site Learning and Educational Visits
• 27 Work Experience and Vocational Placements
• 30 Referrals, Admissions and Ending Placements
• 37 Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance
• 38 Relationships, Sex and Health Education

Document control and ratification

This policy is signed off by the Designated Safeguarding Lead and the Head of Alternative Provision, and ratified by the Social Work Management Committee. It is reviewed every year, or sooner after an incident or a change in law, statutory guidance or contract requirements, and it is available to any commissioning local authority on request.