Key Stage 3 Curriculum 2009-2010
Categories: Curriculum News
Key Stage 3 Curriculum 2009-2010
Parents will be aware that a new National Curriculum was launched in schools last year for Year 7 and is now following on into Year 8. The driving force of the new curriculum is to enable all students to become successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens. Many initiatives have been introduced to achieve these aims like our Theme Days, giving students opportunities for student leadership and the 100 minute lessons.
The focus for all learning at The Ravensbourne School is for students to become successful people in the future. We intend that they will develop certain attitudes and attributes (for example, determination, risk taking, confidence) and increase their knowledge and understanding. At The Ravensbourne we have always given parents a commitment that a main focus would be to develop skills of literacy, numeracy and ICT as these are at the centre of all learning. We are now looking to develop other important personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS) in our curriculum – and below are details of two schemes devised to give our students opportunities to improve their skills in these areas.
Star Skills 200
Students in Year 7 and Year 8 will have a 200 minute slot each fortnight on a Friday when they can opt for a range of activities that are intended to develop their competencies in the PLTS (Creative Thinking, Effective Participation, Independent Enquiry, Reflective Learning, Self Managing, Team Working) – and be a lot of fun! Visitors to our school recently will have seen the blue banners in the Small Hall which “advertise” these skills to our students to emphasise their importance. Students will choose five activities over the two years, which are intended to be largely practical and give students the chance to work outside the classroom environment (the enclosed Options booklet outlines the choices). This is an extremely exciting venture to give our students challenges and opportunities that certainly would not be available to them in the majority of schools.
Curriculum Cluster – Projects
Departments have been planning together to deliver projects to Year 7 and Year 8 at certain times of the year, where there is a shared focus between three or four departments. The aim is to link learning together so that our students understand that what is learnt in one subject is often consolidated in another. Some examples of the projects are:
English/History/RS – Conflict and Peace (Year 7) : English will focus on Michael Morpurgo’s “Private Peaceful”, a personal account of a character living through the First World War; R.S. will focus on the moral implications of war; and History will look at how war has changed over the years.
Geography/Maths/MFL – Rivers (Year 8) : Geography will examine how rivers develop and conduct fieldwork; Maths will consider aspects like volume and capacity and try to build a successful raft which floats!: and MFL will look at foreign rivers and places of interest.
ICT/Science/PE – Sports (Year 7) : ICT will research using the Internet and students will develop their own sport; in PE students will undertake a range of activities; and Science will consider how nutrition and a healthy diet can support activity.
Media Arts (Art/Music/Drama/Technology) – The Living Gallery (Year 8) : students will be able to choose in the second half of the summer term to pursue this theme through Art (looking at paintings from the National Gallery), Textiles (costume design and creation), Resistant Materials (set design), Drama ( performances based upon stories from paintings) or Music (music played to support the drama performances).
Mr Turner
Deputy Head Curriculum
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