Specialist Curriculum Overview

At Hatfield Wick School: Whitelands Campus, our overarching intent is rooted in a simple ethos: ensuring that every pupil and student achieves ambitious goals and lives life to the fullest through a purposeful, engaging and adaptable curriculum. Our specialist school curriculum is designed to meet the diverse needs of learners within an Independent Special School setting, creating meaningful opportunities for both academic and personal success.

We provide access to a broad and balanced specialist curriculum, offering a wide range of qualifications including AQA Awards, Functional Skills and GCSEs, all carefully tailored to individual learner abilities and aspirations. As a curriculum for an Independent Special School setting, our approach focuses on re-engaging pupils with learning, building confidence and supporting sustained progress.

The curriculum at Hatfield Wick School addresses gaps in prior learning while providing the right balance of challenge and support to help pupils and students achieve success in education and beyond. Through our distinct curriculum pathways, Nurture, Growth and Flourish, learners are supported to make significant progress from their individual starting points within a structured and nurturing environment.

We deliver an innovative, needs-led and adaptable curriculum alongside the National Curriculum, specifically developed to overcome barriers to learning and promote personal development. Through robust holistic assessment, we personalise each learner’s educational journey, ensuring they receive the right combination of therapeutic support, specialist intervention and academic study. This tailored approach equips pupils and students with the confidence, resilience and skills they need to succeed in the wider world. Our CARES approach includes:  

Compassion - Recognising pupils’ lived experiences and supporting emotional safety.  

Autonomy - Encouraging independence, choice and ownership of learning.  

Respect - Valuing diversity, identity and individual pathways.  

Empathy - Teaching understanding of others and emotional literacy.  

Support - Providing consistent, personalised and scaffolded learning.  

It enables us to deliver flexible and responsive content ensuring pupils and students can grow to: live with meaningful independence; secure paid employment in a career that is of interest and relevance to them; and enjoy social inclusion throughout the whole of their lives. 

The Hatfield Wick Curriculum

Our curriculum has 3 tracks: Nurture, Growth and Flourish. Our design is supported by the research of Lewis & Brahm (2004) that indicate the pedagogical needs of pupils can be seen in three ways: unique needs, specific needs and common needs. These are woven within our curriculum to ensure that the Nurture tack covers those with the most unique needs, the Growth track covers specific needs and the Flourish covers common needs that are typically ordinarily available.