Gateway has 3 programmes – Lower, Middle and High School. At Gateway, therapies are integrated with academics. The programs are designed to be developmentally appropriate and strategic for the future path of each child. The programs have a different focus for different age groups.
In the lower school, an emphasis is given on developing foundational skills. This includes language skills such as speaking, listening and foundational literacy; foundational maths skills, age-appropriate social and emotional skills; and physical /sensory-motor development.
Foundational skills are prioritized over a breadth of content knowledge for students at this age to ensure students are equipped with the necessary skills to cope in higher grades.
In middle school, we adopt a more balanced approach. Students continue to work on foundational skills along with their academic content. At this stage, students may be taught to make use of adaptive skills to access the content, even if they struggle with foundational skills. For example, a 12-year-old student struggling to read can be taught to use a computer reader or a reader and writer accommodation to access the same content.
In high school, the focus shifts to supporting the transition of students in the next phase of their journey beyond Gateway. A vision is developed collaboratively with parents and strategic efforts are made to support students with all the prerequisites required to succeed in their path ahead.
Below is a detailed overview of the various components of The Gateway program:
| High School (14+) |
Co-curricular (Arts & Gym) | NIOS 12th | High School Adaptive Program |
Internships Service Learning Program Literacies |
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| IGCSE 10th | NIOS 10th | ||||
| Middle School (11-14) & Lower School (7-11) |
Academic Curriculum (Key concepts in Language, Maths, Multi-disciplinary Learning Units – MLU) | ||||
| Foundational skills (Sensory-Motor, Speech & Language, Social-Emotional, Executive Functioning & Remediation) | |||||
Academic Curriculum
The academic curriculum at Gateway is designed to provide the foundational knowledge and skills that all students deserve. The curricular program draws from evidence-based, academic standards and the NIOS and Cambridge curriculum. We incorporate the core disciplines of Language and Literacy, Humanities, Sciences, Mathematics, Information and Communication Technology, Arts and Physical Education.
Our Lower and Middle School curriculum is centred around multi-disciplinary units (MLUs). These units integrate standards from across all disciplines. Integrated units help students better understand how knowledge is connected. They also helps students generalise and transfer knowledge across classes and their day to day lives.
In addition to our core curriculum, we also have a homeroom specific curriculum. The homeroom curriculum is tailored to the needs of students in a particular homeroom. It addresses the foundational areas of Socio-emotional, Adaptive Skills development, Speaking and Listening, and Executive Function skills.
The curricular program is taught in age-appropriate groups by one or more teachers to ensure optimal differentiation for all students.
Therapies at Gateway
At Gateway, therapies are integrated with academics. All therapies are focused on objectives that support our students with academic learning. If we feel any child needs support above and beyond what we are providing in school, we may share home programs with you or recommend outside therapy. At Gateway, we proactively provide all students with therapies based on their areas of need – this may happen in the form of whole group classes, small group sessions, or in a 1:1. Further, to ensure that the skills and strategies are generalizing throughout the day, the therapists also push-in to different classes to support our students.
Social-emotional learning (SEL)
Our Social-emotional (SE) program is based on an evidence-based framework that we have adopted from CASEL – the Collaboration for Academics and Social-Emotional Learning and adapted keeping in mind our students. At Gateway, we proactively explicitly teach our students age-appropriate skills related to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making as we know that these areas are pivotal to be successful in our day-to-day lives. Along with this, as and when needed, we provide responsive support to our students, families and team members. Our SE team also works closely with the parents and our team to learn from them and provide support with behaviours at school and at home.
Sensory Motor
The Sensory-Motor Development program, is focused on nurturing and supporting the body, on the foundation of which, learning academics and life skills can take place. The services of the Sensory-Motor department include designing goals specific to sensory integration, occupational therapy, and physical therapy, that directly impact classroom learning. Therapy is directed to support 5 foundational Sensory Motor areas of Self regulation (Attention), Gross and Fine Motor Skills, Visuoperceptual skills, Body Awareness and Motor Planning. Therapists also assist teachers in making environmental adaptations in their classrooms, that facilitate the regulation of the body and sensory systems to promote learning, Additionally, Sensory Motor Therapy also supports movement embedded learning into classroom practise, as multisensory approach to learning is key for Universal Design Learning
Speech and language
Speech and language therapy aims at developing listening, speech language and communication skills that help our children become efficient communicators in a classroom and in their day to day functioning. As with other therapists, our speech and language therapists also work with parents,teachers and other educational staff to help our students reach their full educational potential. School based speech and language therapy is designed to provide students better access to education and is not a replacement to medically based therapy.
The Individualised Program
At Gateway, each child’s programme is designed to optimize learning and development for the individual child.
One homeroom teacher serves as a child’s advisory who oversees the child’s individualised programme. The advisor, along with our multi-disciplinary team of parents, teachers, therapists and students themselves, is responsible for identifying and prioritising goals for the student. These goals may be an area of need such as speech and language development, sensory-motor development, socio-emotional development or foundational academic skills like reading, writing or executive function skills.