Freshfield Primary School

Resource Unit — EQUALS Informal Pathway

Curriculum Overview and Areas of Learning

About the Informal Pathway

The Informal EQUALS curriculum pathway reflects the diverse and complex range of needs that many of our learners in Freshfield’s Resource Unit present with. It enables teaching staff to develop highly specific teaching strategies and carefully designed learning environments that meet those needs with precision and warmth.

Pupils on the Informal Pathway are at the earliest and most foundational stages of intentional learning. Rather than subject-specific content, the focus is on the fundamental building blocks that underpin all future development:

• Functional communication — finding a motivation, a means and a partner
• Sensory regulation and tolerance, enabling readiness to learn
• Developing play skills across a spectrum from solitary to cooperative
• Growing independence in self-care, daily routines and personal choices
• Creative and physical experiences that support regulation, connection and joy

Progress on the Informal Pathway is about connection, awareness and autonomy — not tests or worksheets. Every small step forward is meaningful and celebrated.

Three Principles Underpinning All Learning

Who is this Pathway for?

Pupils on the Informal Pathway at Freshfield are likely to demonstrate some or all of the following characteristics:

• At the earliest stages of intentional communication — using behaviour, movement and emerging signals rather than formal language
• Benefiting from high levels of adult-supported interaction using approaches such as Intensive Interaction, shared attention and total communication
• Developing awareness of people, objects and their environment through sensory exploration
• Building tolerance and flexibility across different sensory experiences, environments and social situations
• Progressing through the earliest levels of play — from solitary exploration towards parallel and shared engagement
• Requiring consistent, predictable routines with careful, graduated exposure to change

Pathway placement is not determined by age or year group. Pupils are on the Informal Pathway because it is the right curriculum for them right now. Progress is always measured against their own starting point using ipsative assessment principles.

The Engagement Model on the Informal Pathway

All learning on the Informal Pathway is framed through Freshfield’s five areas of Engagement. These areas connect directly to the curriculum content across all areas of learning and provide the framework through which staff observe and assess meaningful progress.

On the Informal Pathway, pupils are typically developing across Anticipation, Initiation and Exploration — moving from fleeting engagement and low-level anticipation towards self-initiated communication and early parallel play with peers. Realisation — understanding that their actions have an effect — is a key milestone that unlocks communication development and underpins all areas of the curriculum.

My Communication

Communication is the heartbeat of the Informal Pathway. At this stage, communication is process-based rather than skill-based: learners will learn the process of communicating by communicating — through real interactions, in real moments, with real partners.

Supporting Approaches and Activities

• Communication games and structured interaction activities
• AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) — devices, coreboards
• Attention Autism sessions — building shared attention through engaging activities
• Sensory Stories — combining narrative, communication and sensory experience
• Intensive Interaction — following the learner’s lead to build communicative dialogue
• Visuals and symbols throughout the environment and daily routines
• Daily phonics-related activities where developmentally appropriate

The classroom environment and resources are changed regularly to reflect the current interests of the children, ensuring motivation to communicate remains high.

My Sensory Play

Play is the curriculum for learners on the Informal Pathway. Through carefully structured play experiences, pupils develop tolerance, flexibility, social awareness and cognitive understanding. We build skills across two interconnected frameworks: the five levels of play and the five social dimensions of play.

The Five Levels of Play

The Five Social Dimensions of Play

Types of Play Opportunity Provided

• Explorative play — open-ended, discovery-based
• Toy-based play — structured, object-focused activities
• Kinaesthetic play — movement and physical engagement
• Physical play — gross motor, outdoor and active
• Heuristic play — exploring collections of real-world objects

My Independence

Independence development on the Informal Pathway focuses on the most fundamental self-care and daily living skills. The goal is not compliance but genuine autonomy — pupils making real choices, managing real tasks and developing real confidence in their ability to navigate their world.

My Cooking and Food Technology

My Dressing and Undressing

• Developing an understanding of washing and getting dressed as a daily routine
• Identifying and selecting appropriate clothing and accessories for weather and occasion
• Building the fine and gross motor control needed to dress and undress with increasing independence

My Travel Training

• Walking as independently as possible within the school — transitioning between areas with decreasing adult support
• Developing awareness of landmarks around the school (gate, playground, sensory room, Resource Unit) as navigational anchors
• Building the confidence and spatial understanding needed to move safely within a familiar environment

My Creative

Creative experiences on the Informal Pathway are not about producing outcomes — they are about exploration, regulation, connection and joy. Every creative session is an opportunity to communicate, engage with the senses, develop motor skills and share experience with others.

Art

Dance and Drama

• Intensive Interaction — responding to and leading communicative exchanges through movement and expression
• Sensory stories — combining narrative, movement and sensory experience
• Drama games: Peek-a-boo, I Can See You, Changing Faces, Blowing Faces
• Rocking Rhymes, Movement Games and Interactive Songs — regulation through rhythm
• Parachute games — shared physical experience building social awareness
• Copying actions, massage and tactile play — building body awareness and trust
• Wake and Shake — waking up the body through action songs and movement
• Regular brain and movement breaks — freeze dance, action songs for regulation
• Cool-down routines — supporting transitions between activities

Music

All music sessions at Freshfield give learners the opportunity to:

• Listen and attend to music — building auditory focus and shared attention (Anticipation)
• Explore emotional experiences through sound and rhythm (Exploration)
• Use music to self-regulate — music as a calming or energising tool (Realisation)
• Develop interaction and connection through call-and-response and joint music-making (Initiation)
• Make independent decisions — choosing instruments, expressing preferences (Initiation)
• Extend cognitive development through pattern, prediction and memory (Persistence)

My Outdoor School

Outdoor learning is a vital part of the Informal Pathway. The outdoor environment offers unique sensory, physical and social experiences that cannot be replicated indoors. For many pupils, the natural world provides motivating and calming contexts that unlock communication and engagement.

My Physical Wellbeing

Physical development on the Informal Pathway is not about sport or performance — it is about helping every pupil develop confidence, control and connection with their body. Physical experiences are closely linked to sensory regulation, motor development and emotional wellbeing.

Assessment and Progress

Progress on the Informal Pathway is measured using ipsative assessment — every pupil’s progress is measured against their own starting point, not against national age-related expectations. This reflects the principle that all progress is deeply meaningful and that learning must be relevant to the individual. 

We look at progress through the five Engagement areas — Persistence, Anticipation, Initiation, Exploration and Realisation — as well as through the specific curriculum strands in each area of learning. We assess progress using Engagement steps, looking specifically at: Cognition and Learning, Communication and Interaction, Social, Emotional and Mental Health and Physical and Sensory development. We measure this through:

• What a pupil can do independently, and in what contexts
• How awareness, attention and engagement develop over time across the five Engagement areas
• How the pupil communicates — including all non-verbal and pre-intentional signals
• How sensory tolerance and regulation develop
• How play skills progress across the five levels and five dimensions
• Evidence gathered through observations, photographs, videos and professional discussion

EHCP targets are embedded into daily learning and reviewed regularly. Progress is shared with families through Annual Reviews, termly PLIM meetings and ongoing in the moment conversations either in person or via home-school communication forms.

The EQUALS Informal Pathway, delivered within Freshfield’s Resource Unit, ensures that pupils with complex and profound needs access a curriculum that is ambitious, purposeful and deeply respectful of who they are. Every session is an opportunity to Be Kind, to Work Hard, to

Work Together, to Be Proud — and to Make a Difference.

Freshfield Primary School  |  Resource Unit  |  EQUALS Informal Pathway