Curriculum

Beyond Expectations

Achieve more than you ever imagined

Our Mission
We prepare our young people for healthy, fulfilling adult lives by building
communication, confidence, and independence. We empower young
people and families to make choices and ensure they are better prepared
for their next steps.

Every Learner. Every Pathway. Every Future.

How We Support Learning at Talbot

Understanding our approach to teaching, communication and support

Our curriculum is designed to be ambitious, inclusive, and responsive to
the diverse needs of our learners. We organise our main school classes into
carefully designed pathways – Pre-Formal, Informal, and Semi-Formal –
that reflect the broad profiles of our learners, including their
communication styles, learning needs, and health considerations.

This pathway model continues into our Post-16 provision, which offers three
routes: Pathway to an Enriched Adult Life, Pathway to a Supported Adult
Life, and Pathway Towards an Independent Adult Life. Each provides an
environment and curriculum that best support these learner profiles while
celebrating the individuality of every student. Our pathways ensure that
every learner is supported to make meaningful progress from their
individual starting points.

Although each pathway has distinct characteristics, they remain flexible
and inclusive and are united by a consistent ethos and culture across the
school. Students are placed where their needs will be best met, with
regular opportunities to connect with and learn alongside peers from other
pathways.

At Talbot School, we place a strong emphasis on communication and use
the ‘CATHS’ approach: Communication At The Heart of the School. This
approach guides communication development and plays a key role in
pathway and class placement, ensuring that each student is grouped
within an environment that aligns with their communication profile and
developmental stage. Our classes are mixed-age and organised by
developmental learning stage rather than chronological age. Wherever
possible, students remain with the same staff team over time, helping to
build strong relationships with families, strengthen trust, enable early and
proactive support, and allow staff to become strong advocates for
students alongside parents and carers.

Each curriculum offer ensures that all required subjects are taught,
whether delivered discretely or embedded within broader areas of
learning, while retaining a strong emphasis on developing communication
skills. Our curriculum is deliberately broad and balanced, providing rich
and varied learning opportunities across all pathways and ensuring that
learning remains relevant, purposeful, and appropriately challenging.
Learning is carefully sequenced so that knowledge, skills, understanding,
and communication develop progressively within and across pathways.

In addition, curriculum work across all pathways is closely connected to
our whole-school themes. These themes provide a unifying structure that
enriches learning, ensures coherence across subjects, and offers
meaningful and engaging contexts that link knowledge, skills, and
communication development to real-world experiences.

We use both spiral and mastery approaches within each pathway. Key
skills and concepts are introduced, revisited, and extended through a spiral
structure, enabling learners to encounter essential learning repeatedly and
in increasingly meaningful contexts. Alongside this, a mastery approach
ensures that learners have the time, support, and rich opportunities
needed to secure understanding, build fluency, and apply learning
confidently before progressing. Together, these approaches ensure that
skills and knowledge are securely consolidated, generalised across
contexts, and meaningfully applied in everyday situations, both within
school and in the wider community.

Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) is embedded at Talbot from Year 7. For
our learners, adult success is defined less by academic attainment and
more by communication, independence, wellbeing, community
engagement, and being as well prepared as possible for the next stage of
their lives.

Learning is planned and delivered at a pace appropriate to each learner,
with EHCP outcomes acting as drivers for what is prioritised, revisited, and
deepened over time. This ensures that learning remains firmly anchored in
what matters most to the young person and their family. EHCP outcomes
are organised under the PfA pillars: Learning for Life, Independent Living,
Friends, Relationships and Community, and Health. This EHCP-focused
approach ensures that every student’s curriculum is deeply personalised,
meaningful, and ambitious, while remaining fully aligned with Talbot’s
values, pathway framework, and long-term commitment to Preparation for
Adulthood.

Through this approach, we ensure that the curriculum remains ambitious,
inclusive, and focused on improving outcomes for every learner.