YEAR 7 CURRICULUM

Our philosophy is very clear, we wish to fully engage our students with first class learning opportunities and a first class curriculum at KS3. We will build on the learning experiences our pupils have had in their primary school and help them to develop the life skills they need for the future.

The information that follows describes the conditions that we will create to ensure effective learning can take place and the curriculum we will deliver to provide the very best learning and development opportunities for our pupils.

The Learning Environment

We believe that pupils will thrive when they are happy in their learning environment; therefore, we provide a setting that allows for smooth transitions. We have an exclusive teaching area with nine classrooms that imitate a typical primary school. The classrooms are stimulating and appeal to all types of learners.

We offer our pupils the opportunity to be with friends in their form groups. This gives them a support cushion and pupils have highlighted this as being of great importance to them during the time leading up to and start of their secondary phase education.

At present we group our year 7 pupils based on their “average” ability in Maths and English. We plan to continue setting pupils for the core subjects (including French) based on Primary Teacher Assessments.

Curriculum Developments – ‘Opening Minds’

Changes to the KS3 curriculum introduced by QCA (Qualifications & Curriculum Authority) recognise the need to create a curriculum fit for the 21st Century Learner, providing opportunities for the development of transferable skills useable in any learning context.

We have embraced these changes and have a year 7 curriculum that offers:

* Learning opportunities that will enable students to develop a set of learning ‘tools’ or competences in order to flourish in their future.

* Learning opportunities that will allow them to apply those skills and competences in many contexts thus creating independent, resourceful, lifelong learners who enjoy learning.

* Learning opportunities that will enable pupils to make connections between different curriculum experiences by understanding their learning process.

The Curriculum will:

* Be stimulating and innovative

* Be a balance between discrete subjects and a cross-curricular approach

* Support flexible learning techniques and a variety of learning styles.

* Support greater continuity with KS2 experience i.e.

o Fewer teachers

o Fewer separate subjects

o Longer lessons

o Active learning

‘Opening Minds’

Our exciting and relatively new programme is entitled ‘Opening Minds’ and incorporates a range of practical subjects (ICT, Cooking, Design Technology, Drama, Art, Music and Media) together with the subjects know as ‘Humanities’ (Geography, History and Learning for Life). The Opening Minds curriculum is a series of cross-curricular modules that focus on a particular ‘theme’. Each module lasts for approximately half a term.

Opening Minds will be allocated blocks of time for example a whole morning, whole afternoon or combination thereof to allow out of classroom learning and extended learning. Each module will be made up of a combination of ’tutor time’ and practical sessions. The driving factor in all of the modules studied will be the skills and competences that we wish to develop in our pupils. Content and teaching methods will encourage our pupils to be independent, autonomous with the skills to be able to work collaboratively and the confidence to know what to do when they don’t know what to do!

English, Maths, Science, Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) and PE will continue to be timetabled discreetly but some of these lessons will also link to the Opening Minds Themes and have an emphasis on skills development.