Curriculum
The Nova programme is designed to develop language, literacy and numeracy skills by exploring a range of topics in an “ever-expanding universe” pattern. Our themes move from things within the immediate environment to ever-more distant objects, including elements of the imagined and conceptual worlds along the way.
Our program is organised with the idea of developing children in a broad range of areas. We use Personal Lines of Development (PLOD) planning to organise our learning opportunities. PLOD is widely used in Early Childhood Development (ECD) to ensure a balanced learning environment for children.
As with everything we do, we have adapted the PLOD categories to suit children with severe disabilities. We want our children to be active participants in their own lives, rather than watching someone do an activity on their behalf.
Learning materials are developed with our children’s complex communication needs in mind. We use a range of tools to enable children to access learning opportunities to grow their skills.
Our assessments are observation inventory based. This means that we reflect on our children’s progress at set intervals throughout the year to determine milestones reached and goals for the weeks ahead. Each child’s progress is measured against him-/herself.
Each child’s activities are directed according to their individualised education plan (IEP). This is set up in discussion with every family at the start of each school year and reviewed every six months.
The Nova Day
Each day on Nova campus is a structured adventure! Our school day starts at 08:00 and ends at 14:00. Our action-packed routine includes, circle time, guided learning opportunities, structured play time, music and movement, shared reading, sing-alongs, and creative activities.
Each learning opportunity is carefully designed to ensure that we are constantly working towards our goal of developing language, literacy, and numeracy all whilst using AAC. At Nova we not only presume potential we actively reach for it.
The learning day for each class is set and managed by a classroom lead. On the Nova campus, the classroom lead is a trained therapist or special education teacher who is well versed in AAC. The role of the classroom lead is to direct the learning opportunities for each child and to guide the compees to facilitate the child’s autonomous communication.