Message from the Head of Secondary - Curriculum Information 19 March 2020

Dear Parents

We are all very grateful for the large number of messages of support we have received. Thank you to all of our parents, we know you are out there helping to deal with this unprecedented situation. As soon as our VLE was effective on Day 1 of the shutdown we have monitored the impact and listened to feedback. This resulted in two immediate decisions, to reduce the workload in Year 10 and to consider expanding the provision of the interactive platform, which has gone so well in Year 10 and Year 11.

Year 10 now have breaks built into their day and seem to have reached a comfortable balance. We expanded our VLE into Year 9 maths this week and we intend providing interactive lessons for Years 7, 8 and 9 (in maths, English and science) from next week. We have also reduced the number of lessons for those year groups. This should see a significant shift in workload from next week forward, in terms of a mix of task type lessons, lessons delivered on camera (live) and down time when students can take a break from the screen. Parents will be sent an updated timetable by separate e-mail.

We will examine the provision for Year 11 next week once the implications of yesterday's decision to cancel examinations in the UK have been digested. We are in daily, and productive contact with the Ministry of Education and with Pearson Edexcel regarding provision of international examination candidates. In the meantime, we intend to work normally with Year 11 as we assume that examinations, in whatever form, will occur in due course.

Reports will be issued imminently. These reflect your child's progress up to last week's closure.

Next week was due to be our first school Production, ''Grimm Tales'' and we were also scheduled to receive the second stage visit by staff from the Council of International Schools as part of our CIS Accreditation. It would have been a big week. Once this situation passes, and it will pass, we will pick things up and we will re-establish our routines, our momentum and all the great things about our lovely school.

In the meantime, thank you again for helping us and for supporting your / our children through this situation.

With kindest wishes,

Mr. Ken Haggarty

This week our students submitted excellent work with great online interaction. Our primary and secondary students, who are finding Arabic language and Islamic Studies challenging learned a variety of skills to assist them in making this a little bit easier.

Well done to all the students who completed their homework and sent this in on time via our VL system.

Year 7 - Students will continue their research and analysis of artwork by Elizabeth Murray. They will begin to do a compare and contrast exercise with Yayoi Kasuma.

Year 8 - Students will complete their Cubist Artist research and analysis. They will begin work on their compare and contrast exercise and will be introduced to Georges Braque

Year 9 - Students will continue with their drawing activities, working from their photographs of architecture, creating layered sketches and drawings using the tutorial videos included.

Year 10 - Students will be developing skills in using coloured pencils to recreate elements of their work, in preparation for their own abstract artwork.

Year 11 - Students are working on their exam preparation and are developing ideas for their final pieces.

Year 10 – Students will continue studying topic 3 (Finance). Students will learn all about working capital and calculating break even.

Year 11 – Students will be revising topic 2 – Communication and practising answering 9-marker questions using past exam papers.

Year 7 – Students will learn what is Hexadecimal. Students will then learn how to convert from Binary codes to Hexadecimal numbers.

Year 8 – Students will learn how computers search algorithms work taking into account linear and binary search. Students will then be able to carry out searching algorithms.

Year 9 – Students will learn different operators within programming. They will start to learn about mathematical operators, relational operators and boolean operators.

Year 10 – Students will be practising their programming by completing a range of challenges. This will all be done using Python Programming.

Year 11 – Students will finish revising topic 2 (Programming) and go through sub-programmes and validation taking into account range check, presence check and length check.

Year 7 - Students will be continuing to focusing on graphic skills, presentation and rendering (One Point and Two Point Perspective). Other classes will be designing their own sustainable paper and understanding the use of smart technologies.

Year 8 - Some Design and Technology classes will be learning how to create an Isometric 3D object. Students will use their understanding of Isometric to draw their Trinket box in 3D and apply a wood grain pattern. Other Design and Technology classes will be gaining an understanding of the use of a questionnaires for research and design.

Year 9 - Students are currently looking at the environmental impact of energy use, products and architecture (Including the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals). Classes will chose a sustainable architect to research and evaluate their work. Other Year 9 classes are working on graphic skills, presentation and rendering to develop a range of 3D drawn objects.

Year 10 - Students will analyse developments in modern and smart materials, composite materials and technical textiles. Other classes will be carrying out research, including a product analysis, questionnaire and client survey.

Year 11 - Students will understand that there are different types of movement and learn about the classification of levers, linkages, cams, followers, pulleys and belts. We will also investigate and analyse the work of past and present professionals and companies in order to inform design.

Year 7 - Students have been working on reading comprehension with a particular focus on bullying and the effects of bullying.

Year 8 - Students are looking more in-depth at Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The main themes of the play were discussed previously and they were looking at Tybalt’s rage and how his devil-may-care-attitude resulted in his death.

Year 9 - Students are continuing to explore the dark, macabre world of Macbeth. I think we have all realised that there is no happy ending for Macbeth.

Year 10 - Students are continuing to study Literature texts from the Language and Lit anthology including Keats classic poem La Belle Dame sans Merci.

Year 11 - Students are completing the 2020 English language paper and sharing good practice examples then annotating Q5, Q6 as well as the examiner’s mark scheme!

Year 7 - Students will be describing their favourite hobbies and giving their opinions

Year 8- Students will be describing the house of their dreams!

Year 9- Students will be learning how to write about their plans for their future

Year 10- Students will be learning about past festivals they have been to from their home countries through Zoom conferencing

Year 11- Students will be using the Zoom record function to create answers and self-assess their speaking work.

Year 7

• To learn map skills relating to rivers
• To learn about a case study of river flooding

Year 8

• To learn about the resources in Antarctica
• To learn about the different viewpoints in Antarctica

Year 9

• To learn how the rainforest is being managed
• To research another biome and the threats that are created by humans

Year 10

• To Learn the formation of Sand dunes
• To learn about the threats to the sand dune ecosystem

Year 11

• Marking coastal exam paper
• To complete a hazards exam paper

Year 7

• Evaluate ways doctors diagnose illness in the middle ages.
• To assess the impact of the Black Death.

Year 8

• Examine the state of Britain in the decade after the Great War finished. (part 2)
• Judge the extent to which Britain changed. (part 2)

Year 9

• Recall why Africa became the focus of expansion for several European nations in the 1800s. (part 2)
• Explain how African nations regained their independence during the twentieth century. (part 2)

Year 10

• Understand the different circumstances of the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences.
• Understand the key features of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.

Year 11

• To practice exam questions.

Year 7 - Students will continue with topic Equation.

Year 8 - Students will also continue with Topic Equation.

Year 9 - Students will be studying Circle theorem.

Year 10 - Students will continue to work with Sets and Venn diagram and will solve exam style questions.

Year 11 - Students will continue with topic Differentiation (Calculus) and will be solving past paper questions.

Year 7 - To be able to recognize and demonstrate simple melodic ideas from recorded stimuli.

Year 8 - To understand and share the context of jazz music through presenting research on the backgrounds of famous jazz musicians.

Year 9 - To develop understanding of Theme & Variations structure through a comparison of Mozart's Ah, vous dirai-je maman and Brahms' Variations on a Theme of Haydn.

Year 11 - Composition work leading toward completion of the assessment.

Greetings from the PE Department! What a great week we have had posting our VLE lesson's and watching you all complete them to the best of your ability. Although our football field is looking really lonely without you all

This week in secondary PE students have been completing home Fitness circuits where they have had to record their scores after each station. Our Year 10 and year 11 GCSE PE students have been keeping busy by completing home workout challenges and taking part in online Kahoot quiz's testing their Theory knowledge.

We are extremely pleased with how hard everyone has been working and we look forward to seeing more of you in action next week.

Keep it up athletes!

Year 7

• Set 1 - Reproduction, sound, and forces: we will be covering various topics including: how sound is propagated, transmitted and its properties, we will also be looking at how forces interact with each other.
• Set 2 - Sound and ecosystems: we will be covering various topics including how sound is propagated, transmitted and its properties
• Set 3 - Reproduction: we will be looking at how animals and plants reproduce.
• Set 4 - Atoms and elements: we will be looking at the structure of the atom and exploring its subatomic particles.

Year 8 All - Unicellular organisms: we will be exploring various unicellular organisms, including the protists and viruses.

Year 9

• Set 1 - Introduction to IGCSE biology: we will be looking at the first section of IGCSE biology, covering cells and cellular structures.
• Set 2 - Structure and function: we will be looking at the first section of IGCSE biology, covering cells and cellular structures.
• Set 3 - Mass and weight: we will be looking at the differences between mass and weight.

Year 10

• Set C & E Biology - Plant transport
• Chemistry - Reactivity series: we will be looking at the reactivity of metals, how they are found, mined and extracted in nature.
• Physics Set C - Energy, power and heat transfer: we will be covering the connections between energy and power and how heat is transferred in nature.
• Physics Set E - Revision of energy unit and density: we will be revisiting sections of the energy unit before introducing the next unit density.

Year 11 - We will be looking at the universe and stars, the final topic in the course.

Year 7 - Students will be telling us why they love their school!

Year 8 - Studentswill be either talking about their favourite clothing or interesting sporting events!

Year 9 - Students will be learning about recycling in multiple verb tenses

Year 10 - Students will be learning about past festivals they have been to from their home countries through Zoom conferencing.

Year 11 - Students will be using the Zoom record function to create answers and self-assess their speaking work.