Nova Pathway
The Nova Pathway is designed to help students develop the essential knowledge and skills they need to succeed in mainstream education. Its main purpose is to identify and quickly address gaps in foundational learning, enabling students to build confidence, make rapid progress and successfully transition into the mainstream classroom.
Using evidence-informed teaching approaches, the pathway provides targeted support tailored to each student’s individual needs. This may include developing core skills in English and maths, emotional regulation and social understanding.
Students continue to experience the full breadth of the National Curriculum, with carefully planned support and interventions woven into everyday learning. This ensures that students benefit from a broad and ambitious education while strengthening the foundational skills they need to access learning successfully.
On entry, students are assessed to identify their individual learning needs, with regular reassessments used to monitor progress and ensure that teaching and support remain appropriately tailored. The Nova Pathway offers four carefully designed curriculum stages: Emerging, Developing 1, Developing 2 and Mainstream Ready. Each stage provides a level of support matched to students’ developing foundational knowledge and skills, enabling them to make progress towards mainstream education. Emerging, Developing 1 and Developing 2 are available to students on roll at Trinity Academy Grammar, while Mainstream Ready is a Local Authority-funded provision for students with specific Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).
The ultimate aim is for students to close gaps in their learning as quickly as possible, catch up with their peers and develop the knowledge, skills and confidence needed for a successful and sustained return to mainstream education.
Mainstream Ready - Autism Resourced Provision
The Nova Pathway also incorporates our Autism Resourced Provision, a 15 place provision, funded by the Local Authority. This provides a ‘mainstream ready’ pathway which includes specialist SEND classrooms, a quiet room and a sensory room. Our resourced provision students will access a bespoke timetable which helps to meet their individual needs whilst challenging them to be independent and inquisitive learners.
As a team we work collaboratively to ensure that students with autism succeed in their goals and ambitions by accessing a range of focused and purposeful interventions, alongside their curriculum offer which meets the full breadth of the national curriculum. These interventions may include (but are not limited to) life skills, social skills, speech and language support, handwriting support, literacy, numeracy, language for thinking, circle of friends, Lego therapy, speaking and listening, study skills, tactile skills and zones of regulation. All interventions take place during 1:1 sessions or in a small group setting.
This approach will help to gradually prepare our students for a positive and independent transition into further education and adulthood by helping to limit stress and triggers associated with anxiety and worry. To be eligible to access this strand of the Nova pathway the following criteria must be met:
- Your child must have an EHCP
- Your child must have autism as their primary need
- Your child must have the potential to transition out of the provision into the mainstream setting at a later point in their school education
Emerging
The Emerging curriculum is designed to help students establish the essential foundations for successful learning. Through carefully structured teaching and targeted support, students develop early communication, reading, writing and mathematical skills, with a particular focus on building confidence and securing fundamental knowledge.
In English, students develop their understanding and use of spoken language, phonics, early reading and sentence construction. In maths, the focus is on developing a secure understanding of number, counting, place value and simple calculations, supported by practical activities and visual representations.
Learning is carefully broken down into manageable steps, allowing students to experience success, develop independence and build the foundational knowledge needed to access increasingly complex learning. The entire breadth of the national curriculum is experienced through the lens of acquiring the foundations in English and Maths. Bespoke interventions in Life Skills, Social Skills, Professional Standards, Culture Immersion and Weekly Wellbeing are also interwoven to ensure personal development continues in line with their mainstream peers.
Developing 1
The Developing 1 curriculum builds upon students’ existing foundational knowledge, supporting them to develop greater fluency, understanding and independence in their learning. Teaching focuses on securing essential skills and helping students apply their knowledge with increasing confidence across a range of subjects.
In English, students strengthen their reading fluency and comprehension, develop a broader vocabulary and begin to communicate ideas through increasingly detailed spoken and written responses. In maths, students extend their understanding of number and place value, develop fluency in the four operations and begin to apply their knowledge to fractions and a wider range of mathematical problems.
Through carefully sequenced learning and targeted interventions, students are supported to make rapid progress, strengthen their ability to work independently and develop the knowledge and skills needed to access more challenging curriculum content. Their Personal Development opportunities continue to be developed so students keep up with their mainstream peers.
Developing 2
The Developing 2 curriculum is designed to consolidate and extend students’ foundational knowledge, preparing them to access the increasing demands of mainstream secondary education. Teaching focuses on developing fluency, independence and the ability to apply knowledge confidently across a broad and ambitious curriculum.
In English, students develop the ability to read and understand increasingly complex texts, communicate ideas using more precise and varied vocabulary, and produce extended written responses with greater accuracy and structure. In maths, students strengthen their understanding of number, fractions, decimals and percentages, while developing more efficient calculation strategies, mathematical reasoning and the ability to solve increasingly complex problems.
Through targeted support and opportunities to apply learning in different contexts, students develop the confidence, knowledge and independence needed to successfully transition into mainstream lessons and sustain their progress alongside their peers.
