Our Learners

Learner Characteristics

All of our learners have unique strengths, abilities, interests, motivations and learning needs. While each child has an individual learning profile, it is helpful when planning curriculum content and delivery to group learners with similar learning characteristics and needs. This enables us to design and deliver learning experiences that are appropriately matched to the ways in which pupils learn best.

We therefore identify four broad learner profiles: Emerging, Entry, Evolving and Established learners. Pupils within each profile share similar learning needs and benefit from comparable approaches to curriculum delivery, although teaching and support remain personalised to each individual.

It is important to note that our curriculum is organised in such a way that pupils are not restricted by their learner ‘type’ in the opportunities they have to progress and develop. See our curriculum map for how we organise it.

Emerging Learners

The our Emerging learners have the most profound and complex needs. They generally have physical difficulties combined with cognitive processing needs, sensory needs or complex health needs. Our Emerging learners rely on facial expressions, vocal sounds, body language and exhibit a range of behaviours to communicate. Some of them may use a small range of formal communication; others may not have reached the stage of using intentional communication. 

Teachers focus on the development of early communication, social, emotional and cognitive skills that are a pre-condition to learning, the development of positive relationships with familiar adults and the development of behaviours through which they can communicate, in order to explore the world around them using their sensory and physical capabilities to the full.

Emerging learners require multi-sensory approaches to learning and programmes which recognise the interrelationship between the skill-set development, how the progress in one set of skills is dependent on that of another.   

Programmes and approaches for this group of learners focus on sensory integration, the process of organising and making sense of information acquired through our different sensory systems. Through specialist approaches such as Sensology, or through the use of specialist spaces such as dark dens and sensory rooms, teachers encourage learners to ‘practise the senses’ (Hirstwood, 2005). Teachers may work on stimulating several senses at a time or may support learners to focus on just one or two senses at a time by controlling the amount of sensory stimulus in the environment. This helps develop awareness, increase concentration and builds confidence and social and communication skills.

Movement also plays a key role in the teaching programmes of our emerging learners. The research shows that when it is built into learning experiences, cognitive development accelerates, pupils become more communicative and learning is accelerated. It helps learners develop an awareness of their body in space and what is happening to their body when they move and interact with others.

For more information on some of the specialist approaches used with this group of learners particularly, visit our Professional Development Resources page on this website.

Early Learners (Entry & Evolving Learners)

Early learners make up the largest group of our pupils and have a wide range of abilities. We find it helpful to identify two broad groups: Entry and Evolving learners.

These pupils have a range of complex learning difficulties and disabilities. Entry learners are at the earliest stages of learning and, although they show clear purpose in their actions, often need support similar to that provided for Emerging learners. Evolving learners may show strong skills in some areas while continuing to need significant support in others.

With the right support, Early learners can develop as communicators, early readers, and mathematical and scientific thinkers.

As with all our learners, learning environments need to be structured, predictable, and well organised. Information needs to be presented in different ways and repeated regularly. Instructions need to be simple, broken into small steps, and supported by lots of opportunities to practise skills and apply their thinking.

Learning through play is especially important. Skilled adults support pupils by providing just enough help to move learning forward while still encouraging independence, exploration, and discovery.

Alongside routine and structure, Early learners need opportunities to solve problems, try new approaches, and build resilience. These experiences help them apply skills in different situations and connect new learning to what they already know.

Because many Early learners find memory, information processing, and problem-solving challenging, these skills need to be taught explicitly through clear modelling and demonstration.

For more information on some of the specialist approaches used with this group of learners particularly, visit our Professional Development Resources page on this website. 

Established Learners

Our Established learners have acquired sufficient skills to be able to process and memorise new information and have sufficient working memory to be able to connect it to stored information. They may even be quite good at applying it to new contexts and combining it with other information to problem-solve but all our learners are on their own unique learning trajectory and all of them will be still be learning and building these skills at their own pace in their own way.  

Our Eestablished learners are able to focus on building additional skills such as teamwork or leadership skills in PD. They may learn how to negotiate or reflect in SEWB, (Social, Emotional and Well-Being) or learn organisational and self-help skills in PCI, (Personal Care and Independence). They may learn how to explain, justify, infer, summarise or debate in Literacy or how to analyse or think creatively in Science and Technology.