Curriculum: Check, Consider, Change!
27 November 2026: 9 am – 3 pm online
A day to explore how to create a curriculum that is coherent without being restrictive; ambitious without losing sight of individual need; and practical enough to work in busy classrooms every day.
Our presentations explore how to check whether your curriculum is working, how to make daily classroom routines more purposeful, and how to build from learners’ interests, strengths and motivations. Delegates will leave with ideas they can use across planning, teaching, assessment and everyday practice, helping them create learning that is clearer, more engaging and more meaningful for every learner.
Over the course of the day, we ask what is working, how to respond thoughtfully, and how to adapt curriculum practice.
Does our curriculum make sense for our learners?
Does it make sense for the staff delivering it?
How do we build from what learners already enjoy, understand and communicate?
Which learners are thriving within it, and which are not yet fully included?
Can we see that it is leading somewhere meaningful?
Presentations include:
How Do You Know Your Curriculum Works? with Nick Sheffield
Sends a chill down the spine, doesn’t it? How can we be sure we are doing the right thing for every child we teach, and how do we know where they are on their journey?
Circle Time: Making It Meaningful and Ready for Learning with Carol Allen
Many classes start the day with some form of circle time, but how effective is it for your learners?
Special interests and the curriculum: helpful hook or hidden problem? with Chris Barson
Special interests can be a powerful starting point for learning. Are we supporting access to learning, or are we in danger of creating more problems than we are fixing?
Using effective strategies and practical ideas to reassure, support and re-engage anxious pupils with Carol Allen
An anxious pupil is not ready or able to engage in effective learning. In this session, Carol will examine the sensory issues and physiological barriers to learning that may inhibit the anxious pupil.
9 am Admissions and a virtual tea or Coffee to start the day!
9.05 am Welcome, introductions and a warm-up activity.
9.15 am Session 1: How Do You Know Your Curriculum Works? with Nick Sheffield
Sends a chill down the spine, doesn’t it? How can we be sure we are doing the right thing for every child we teach, and how do we know where they are on their journey?
Nick discusses practical, simple and easy approaches to enable quick sense-checking and temperature gauging of your curriculum. Who is your curriculum working best for? Why is it working for those children or those staff but not others? How can you be both prescriptive with your vision and ideals while also giving pupils and staff freedom to experiment and grow within it?
Nick looks at repeatable, sustainable practices that enable teachers to keep delivering a curriculum they understand and leaders to deliver a curriculum they are fluent in and can articulate clearly.
10.15 am Session 2: Circle Time: Making It Meaningful and Ready for Learning with Carol Allen
Many classes start the day with some form of circle time, but how effective is it for your learners?
Carol takes a closer look at how circle time can support a calm and purposeful start to the day, helping pupils transition from home to school and get ready to learn. Delegates will reflect on their current practice and explore ways to make this routine more active, inclusive and engaging.
Whether the focus is communication, regulation or building connection, this session will provide fresh ideas to make the most of this valuable daily opportunity.
10.45 am Coffee
11.00 am Session 3: TBC
12.00 am Session 4: Using effective strategies and practical ideas to reassure, support and re-engage anxious pupils with Carol Allen
An anxious pupil is not ready or able to engage in effective learning. This may present in many forms, which mask the underlying anxiety, such as challenging behaviour. In this session, we will examine the sensory issues and physiological barriers to learning that may inhibit the anxious pupil. Carol will consider how to elicit the information needed to support these pupils and their families, which can be problematic; without clarity, well-meaning support can create new barriers. She will highlight a range of effective strategies and practical ideas to reassure, support and engage these pupils.
12.30 pm Lunch
1.30 pm Session 5: Special interests and the curriculum: helpful hook or hidden problem? with Chris Barson
Special interests can be a powerful starting point for learning. They can help neurodiverse learners feel more motivated, more secure and more ready to take part — particularly when the curriculum can otherwise feel distant, demanding or difficult to access.
But is it always OK to use a learner’s special interest? Are we supporting access to learning, or are we in danger of creating more problems than we are fixing? What do autistic individuals say about special interests?
Chris will look at how to use interests as a bridge into the curriculum, not as a gimmick or reward. He will also consider the more complicated questions: how do we respond to interests that are not considered appropriate, are difficult to manage in school, or may carry an element of risk? How do we avoid taking over, diluting or turning a learner’s interest into another adult-led demand?
Delegates will leave with a clearer understanding of how to build interests into planning, adapt curriculum activities, support flexibility and create meaningful opportunities for learners to show what they know.
2.30 pm Session 5: Breakout Room Activity This session will reflect on the key messages from today’s four sessions and explore how they can be applied in your own setting – whether you support learners with PMLD, SLD or autism.
3 pm Plenary, thank you and close of day!
Click on the names below to read more about our conference presenters!
This conference will be appropriate for classroom practitioners from special schools and colleges, mainstream settings with specialist SEN provision and early years settings, and those working with pupils with autism, and severe/complex or neurodiverse learning needs.
The recording of this event will be in your account at online.hirstwood.com. You will access this using the email address on the booking form and your password (instructions for creating your password are in the joining information).
Here you will find:
a digital recording of the event
a transcript of the Zoom chat
These will be available for 10 days after the event.
EALRY BIRD TICKETS – £275 plus VAT per delegate until 31.8.26
You can select multiple places on the booking form.
You can choose to pay by credit card for this booking.
You can also request an invoice by confirming your booking by entering a Purchase Order Number on the booking form.
