Heather Murdoch, who teaches in the MSI Unit, Victoria School, Birmingham, describes how a new curriculum has been developed for children with MSI

Curriculum, in its widest sense, encompasses everything that happens in a setting that has a potential learning outcome. At the Victoria MSI Unit in Birmingham we have been writing down our curriculum for the past couple of years. The practice was there already, we have changed nothing in terms of what we do. Our new venture has been to structure and formalise our practice onto paper, to make it accessible to others and help our planning.

The Victoria MSI Unit is a regional resource for fifteen pupils, based at a large school for pupils with physical disabilities. The Unit is well-resourced, with very high staffing ratios, flexible timetabling and considerable staff expertise. In this setting we have developed a cross-curricular, cross-class approach for pupils with MSI who are working at P Levels.

The curriculum draws on a wide range of sources, published, unpublished and verbal, and on detailed observation of the pupils with whom we work.

It is divided into eight domains:

• social relationships and emotional development;
• communication;
• conceptual development;
• sensory responses;
• understanding of time and place;
• orientation, movement and mobility;
• ownership of learning;
• responses to routines and changes.

Some of these are equally relevant for all children. Others have particular relevance for pupils with MSI. Our priorities are to work from and with pupils’ many strengths; to respond to MSI-related obstacles to learning, and to offer breadth, balance and relevance in meaningful, non-tokenistic ways. Put simplistically, the aim of the Curriculum is to help pupils learn how to learn, how to access and interpret and learn from and respond to their learning environment. The curriculum underpins the national curriculum, and students who reach the end of Phase 4 should be able successfully to access a modified national curriculum and additional elements with appropriate support.

The curriculum is divided into four Phases, reflecting pupils’ increasing understanding. Each Phase begins with a description of pupils’ learning on entry to that Phase, then lists the approaches and strategies used to support development. These are rarely content-specific, rather they describe how a pupil’s learning will be supported using staff behaviour and expectations, different teaching environments, teaching objectives and strategies, attention to the complexity of information and a balance of group and individual work. The specific activities and content used in this process will vary with pupils’ sensory and other abilities, their ages, strengths and preferences. 

Each Phase has a linked assessment profile, which allows the recording of pupil progress and also indicates areas of particular strength or need which staff may wish to emphasise when planning future teaching objectives. For each item, three levels of mastery are recorded: aware, achieved in specific contexts and generalised, the emphasis on generalisation is because this is a particular problem for pupils with MSI. Summary charts are used to show progress over time.We also use a range of other assessment strategies, to complement curriculum Phase assessment and to check its accuracy for individual pupils. 

We greatly value the flexibility of our approach to delivering the curriculum. It allows us to provide highly individual programmes to meet the pupils’ differing needs and to make full use of appropriate school-wide activities, Victoria School is a Specialist Arts College, so there are many of these. Some students will complete the curriculum and move on; others will work at appropriate Phases until leaving school for adult services. In either case, we cannot assume that students will continue in specialist MSI settings, so they need to learn how to access and use support - one aspect of the ‘Ownership of learning’ domain. Inclusion with pupils without MSI offers many opportunities for work in this domain, among others. Some pupils, for example, spend time at the neighbouring school for deaf children. Older pupils usually work on ASDAN Transition Challenge or Towards Independence Awards, and may spend time in the school’s post-16 provision as part of this process.

Victoria’s OFSTED inspection last year rated curriculum throughout the school as outstanding, and particularly mentioned the ‘excellent curriculum specifically for pupils with multi-sensory impairments'. Since then, the curriculum has been trialled by teachers working with pupils with MSI in a wide range of settings. In particular, we wanted to know how useful it might be in services with lower staff ratios or other constraints. Teachers from ten settings have given detailed and positive feedback which will be used in the revision of the draft document this Autumn. Once that is complete, the Curriculum will be published with support from Sense. Watch this space!

Eoghan is seven and working at Phase 2. 

He has no sight, a moderate-severe hearing loss and difficulties with controlled movement. He is happy and curious. Each morning he explores and finger-feeds breakfast cereal in his standing frame. He is cued for this activity by sitting securely with his keyworker Kellie and exploring all the objects used. Kellie offers each object, for example by dropping the packet of cereal into the bowl so that Eoghan feels it fall, then he chooses how and for how long to explore it. In this way he is learning to anticipate the activity ahead, to take turns in a ‘conversation’, to recognise everyday objects and to share control of an activity with an adult.

Andaleeb is eleven and working at Phase 2. 

She has no sight, very limited hearing and a skilled and intricate use of touch. Although she learns new routines quickly, she becomes distressed unless activities follow familiar patterns. She walks each day with support from her teacher Rosie on a familiar route around school, using touch to explore walls, doors and objects on the way. Over time the mutual trust between Andaleeb and Rosie has led to an increase in Andaleeb’s self-confidence. She now shows Rosie what kind of help she wants, actively anticipates the route and is clearly pleased at her own skill. Future work will aim to generalise these responses to other activities, based again on Andaleeb’s strengths and interests and with support from a trusted adult.

Joffy is fifteen and working at Phase 3.

He has limited sight and hearing and in the past only showed interest in objects or events within arm’s reach. Over the last couple of years, with much encouragement, he has progressed to visually monitoring the environment up to several metres away. This is a real achievement, it helps him to orientate himself in different environments, to look where he is going when walking, and to watch other pupils in group activities. Most assessments for pupils at early developmental stages don’t, however, recognise this achievement at all.

Examples of development at different Phases