• Curriculum Initiatives

    Specialising in Special Educational Needs Training and Advice

    LEARN MORE

Curriculum Initiatives

Over the last 5 years or so, I have been increasingly interested in developing separate and distinct curricula for those on the PMLD and SLD spectrums. That is different curriculums not differentiated. This derives from my belief that those with PMLD and SLD (with or without an additional ASD diagnosis) learn fundamentally differently from neuro-typical conventionally developing learners.

As such I have been working very closely with Equals (a not-for-profit charity dedicated to improving with educational lives of those with SLD and PMLD and their families) to write what we believe to be the first multi-tiered curriculum model in the world, all of which have been written for the express purpose of educating children, young people and adults with SLD and PMLD.

Pre-formal
Curriculum

PMLD

Working consistently & over time within P1 to P3

Semi-Formal (Explore)*
Curriculum

SLD, SLD/ASD

Working consistently and over time within P4-P5 ish

Semi-Formal (Challenge)** Curriculum

SLD, SLD/ASD

Working consistently and over time within P4 to L1/2 ish

Formal Curriculum

Adapted National Curriculum English and Maths based.

Working consistently and over time, below age related expectations

These curricula can be viewed at Equals (www.equals.co.uk) which also houses a short 10 minute video explaining the rationale of the Semi-Formal (Challenge) Curriculum. A short (6 page) written academic rationale can be downloaded from this site, and anyone interested in a longer discourse can refer to my last book (written with Andrew Colley) entitled Inclusion is Dead: Long Live Inclusion and published by Routledge in 2017. Don’t be put off by the title; it’s about the inadvisability of teaching children with SLD or PMLD alongside their mainstream peers if this means in the same class and/or following the same curriculum. It can’t be done, it never has been done, and it shouldn’t be done!

*
**My thanks to Jeanette Scull at John F Kennedy School in Stratford, London for coining the terms Semi-Formal Explore and Semi-Formal Challenge.