Training, Curriculum & Support -
for Schools & Families

Gaia Learning's curriculum is designed to be inclusive, rigorous, flexible, and skills-based. It’s rooted in the Cambridge curriculum and aligned with the English national curriculum and GCSE requirements, ensuring academic depth and progression.

Key Features:

• Three-Year Curriculum Framework: All subjects have a three-year plan with detailed learning objectives (LOs) for each year.
• Spiral Learning Model: Learners revisit key skill strands across stages, building knowledge in layers. Each learning objective is categorised as Foundational, Core, or Challenge, promoting appropriate stretch and support.
• Flexibility for Educators: Gaia educators are encouraged to adapt and teach creatively while using the curriculum as a scaffold to ensure all key skills and knowledge are covered. This empowers neurodivergent learners by supporting individual strengths and interests.
• Project-Based Learning: The curriculum uses real-world, interdisciplinary projects rather than rigid textbook lessons. Each project includes scope for entry from any skill level and tracks learner progress without requiring prior knowledge.
• Assessment Built-In: Assessments are continuous and competency-based, using a matrix that tracks progress across foundational to challenge skills. Learners are rated as Developing, Secure, or Mastering for each LO, and this is reviewed after every project or half-term.
• Inclusivity Definition: While not universally inclusive for all ability levels (e.g., non-verbal learners are currently out of scope - but we're working on it), the approach is significantly more inclusive than most mainstream curricula. This is due to its adaptability, skill focus, and emphasis on learner agency.
• Supporting Documentation: Each subject has a guidance document explaining the curriculum rationale, structure, links to national standards, and how it should be interpreted and adapted.

Flexible 3-yr curriculum journey

Our curriculum is built as a three-year spiral, allowing learners to join at any point and still experience the full range of topics over time. While topics don’t repeat, learners can revisit areas if more time or support is needed—deepening their understanding and progressing at their own pace.

This structure is ideal for personalised education, catch-up learning, and mixed-ability classrooms. Whether a learner joins in Year 7, 8 or 9, they will access a rich, full learning journey over the course of the cycle.

Lesson Topics & Inquiry Hooks

• Lesson Topics and Inquiry Hooks to spark curiosity and engagement.
• Suggested Introductory Teaching Input for whole group or individual delivery.
• Learning Objectives tailored to key concepts and ability-appropriate depth.
• Differentiated Activities aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy, with Scaffolding suggestions for varied needs and support levels, to ensure all learners can access and engage.
• Rubric Criteria for Developing, Secure, and Mastery outcomes - suitable for self-assessment, peer assessment and educator assessment.
• You’ll also find links to recommended resources, including videos, articles, interactive tools, and quizzes to help bring the topic to life.

Assessment & Learner Progress Tracking

• Each lesson comes with customisable rubrics for assessment that adapt to different learning styles, goals, and abilities. These are aligned to the national curriculum & inspired by the Cambridge International curriculum.
  Educators and guardians can assess learning against rubrics and track learner progress across lessons and subjectsLearners can self-assess against rubrics, increasing assessment transparency & providing opportunity for improvement.
• Learners can request reviews from guardians or assigned educators. Guardians can request Gaia review and moderation of assessments (additional service).
• Outcome trackers (coming soon) will link directly to our Gaia Hive platform, providing real-time progress updates for learners, guardians, and educators