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art

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Baseline drawing assessment 

Topic: Insects 

We will look at a range of Art skills including: symmetrical drawing; mark making techniques; patterns 

 

Baseline assessment 

Mark making beetle 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Topic: Insects 

We will look at a range of Art skills including: sgraffito techniques; artist research and response; collage 

  

Sgraffito pattern design 

 Artist collage response 

bELIEFS AND ETHICS

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

War, Peace and Justice

  • Whose life is it?
  • Is belief worth a life?
  • What is the law?
  • What are crime and punishment?

 No formal assessment this term

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

 War, Peace and Justice

  • Punishment – why and how should we do it?
  • Should we ever use violence?
  • Is war ever justified?
  • What are the causes of war today?

Capital punishment is always wrong. Discuss.

 

Computer Science

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

eSafety Recap 
To make sure everyone knows how to be safe using the computers. 

 

Animation 

This unit will look at how we can use computers to animate and how to manipulate images.  

Eventually you will learn how to create an animated menu for a fast-food restaurant. 

Baseline assessment 

 

Continuous assessment of progress using delivercomputing360.com.  
 
End of unit test 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

HTML (website creation)  
Learning how websites works is a very useful skill to have.  
In this unit you will go from never using HTML before to being able to make your own site.   

Continuous assessment of progress using delivercomputing360.com.  
 
End of unit test 

 

Design Technology

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

In Design Technology students will rotate around 4 subject areas and IT during the year. Students spend approximately 7 weeks in each subject area. They will be building on foundation skills learnt in Year 7 with a core focus on Design.  
 
Electronics:  

Students will make a portable battery powered fan. The project reinforces soldering technique and introduces students to a wider range of components including motors. Students accurately measure, customise and cut their line-bent HIPs casing. They will also be introduced to more advanced drawing techniques such as orthographic projection. 
 
Food & Nutrition:  
Students will be looking at eating a healthy balanced diet and food from a range of different cultures. They will gain the confidence to cook a main meal and it is our hope that students will be able to repeat the meals we make in school for dinner at home. 
Theory: Students look at Food Provenance – where our food comes from, what the function of ingredients are in a recipe and what Fusion food is. They are taught to create their own fusion dishes considering the choice of the ingredients based on maximising nutrition, taste and visual appeal.  
The dishes made in Year 8 are Savoury Rice, Fajitas, Calzone and a Fusion dish that they have designed.   
Please note that all recipes and cooking dates will be on Go4Schools.  We have also introduced a recipe book which they will be given at the start of their food rotation. Students need to bring a container with a locking lid to take their food home in.  
 
Product Design:  
Students in year 8 will produce a phone stand from plywood, developing the skills they would need should they choose to take product design at GCSE. They will learn to mark out accurately, saw using different saws, chisel and finish their phone stands to a high quality finish.  They will also gain an understanding of what a product analysis is and why they are useful to designers. They will learn about  different timber materials including their properties and uses. 

Textiles: 

Students will be celebrating Food as Art, creating a textile case that includes a textile motif of their favourite food, using recycled/found fabric. Students are welcome to buy and bring any of their own fabrics they may have access to.  They will also be challenged to “draw with scissors”, inspired by Henri Matisse’s cut-outs. They will cut out shapes and layer these fabrics to create an illustrative textile outcome. 

  In each DT area students will be assessed on and receive a grade for their Design work – during the rotation and at the end as well as their Finished Practical outcome.    

 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Repeated in term 2

Repeated in term 2

Drama

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Fairy Tales

  • Explore a range of fairy tales, focusing on sympathy, antipathy and empathy.
  • To explore different character relationships within and across different fairy tales.
  • Develop range of vocal and physical skills to create convincing character on stage
  • Developing improvisation skills from Year 7.

Mid Unit Assessment
An improvisation based around the characters and storyline of one fairy tale.

End of Unit Assessment
A short performance where students incorporate a range of different characters into one story.


 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Darkwood Manor

  • Explore a range of storylines based around the mysterious ‘Darkwood Manor’
  • Build a range of verbal and non-verbal communication skills 
  • Enhance ability to use thought tracking, hot seating, narration for different purposes and outcomes.

Mid Unit Assessment

A group performance based around exploring one haunted room of the manor.

End of Unit Assessment
Students will create and devise their own short performance, focusing on a group of teenagers that enter the manor.

Each assessment will focus on a specific range of vocal skills, physical skills and performance techniques.

English Language & Media

Curriculum Information Term 5

Assessment information Term 5

 19th Century Non-FictionStudents will learn about the context of the changing world in the 19th century, which also feeds into their study of Gothic literature. They will explore a range of forms of writing including: 

  • Travel writing  

  • Letter writing 

  • Articles  

  • Reports 

 Formative: knowledge quiz, vocabulary test, and comprehension tasks. 

 

Summative: knowledge quiz, vocabulary test, and comprehension tasks. 

Curriculum Information Term 6

Assessment information Term 6

 19th Century Non-Fiction 

Students will learn about the context of the changing world in the 19th century, which also feeds into their study of Gothic literature. They will explore a range of forms of writing including: 

  • Travel writing  

  • Letter writing 

  • Articles  

  • Reports 

 Formative: knowledge quiz, vocabulary test, and comprehension tasks. 

 

Summative: knowledge quiz, vocabulary test, and comprehension tasks. 

 

English Literature 

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

 Gothic Fiction 

 

Students will explore the context of 19th century Britain, through the lens of the gothic genre. They will look at a series of key extracts from across the gothic genre, including its influences on modern fiction.  

Students will also focus on effective descriptions, using the gothic extracts as a starting point for writing their own descriptions of settings.  

 

 Formative: written questions on comprehension and vocabulary. Short piece of descriptive writing.  

 

Summative: comprehension questions & extended piece of descriptive writing.  

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

 Gothic Fiction (continued) 

Students will explore the context of 19th century Britain, through the lens of the gothic genre. They will look at a series of key extracts from across the gothic genre, including its influences on modern fiction.  

Students will also focus on effective descriptions, using the gothic extracts as a starting point for writing their own descriptions of settings.  

 

 Formative: written questions on comprehension and vocabulary. Short piece of descriptive writing.  

 

Summative: comprehension questions & extended piece of descriptive writing.  

Geography

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Natural Hazards

Plate tectonics, tectonic hazards, earthquakes, volcanoes, management and mitigation of hazards.

Foundation for GCSE Natural Hazards topic.

  • Extended writing question on tsunami case study
  • End of unit- summative assessment of unit content

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Global population

  • Demographics
  • Transition model
  • Population control
  • China’s one Child policy extended writing.

German

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

  I love Holidays 

  • Using past tense to describe what places were like in the past – using comparisons 

  • Using past tense to describe what you did on your holidays 

  • How did you travel to your holiday destination 

What was the weather like on holiday 

  Writing: Grammar gap fill 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Media 

  • Talking about film preferences 

  • Talking about reading preferences, using new adjectives 

Discussing screen time using modal verbs 

 

Humanities

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

  The Industrial Revolution 

  • Why was there an Industrial Revolution 

  • Working conditions in the Industrial Revolution – factories 

  • Working conditions in the Industrial Revolution – coal mines 

  • Significant individuals from the Industrial Revolution 

  • Victorian Public Health 

  ‘Conditions in the factories were the worst part of C19th life’. How far do you agree? 

 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

  Slavery and the American Civil War 
• Transatlantic slave trade 
• Life on a plantation  
• Resistance movements  
• Abolishment of slavery  
• American Civil War 

  Who was the most important key individual to the abolishment of slavery? 

 

Life Skills

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Unit C1  

Resilience 

Cyber Security and Fraud 

Making Decisions 

Social Engineering 

Life Skills is not assessed by grades, other than a baseline and final assessment to measure positive progress. 

 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Unit C2 Every Mind Matters (NHS) 

Dealing with Change 

Bullying 

Smoking 

Body Image 

Online Stress 

Sleep 

Confidence 

Self Awareness 

Life Skills is not assessed by grades, other than a baseline and final assessment to measure positive progress. 

 

Mathematics

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Ratio and scale – understand and represent ratios, dividing in a given ratio, solving ratio problems when 1 part of the ratio is known, simplifying ratios, understanding the link between ratios and fractions, circumference of circle, gradients of lines 
 
Multiplicative change – direct proportion, conversion graphs, currency conversion, similar shapes, scale diagrams and maps  
 
Multiplying and dividing fractions – multiply fractions by an integer, multiply two fractions, divide integers by fractions, divide two fractions, multiply and divide mixed numbers and algebraic fractions  

 Year 7 Summer term, ratio and scale 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

 Working in the cartesian plane – coordinates in all four quadrants, lines parallel to the axes, plotting straight line graphs, linking graphs to direct proportion, non-linear graphs, finding the midpoint of a line segment  
 
Representing data – scatter graphs, frequency tables, two-way tables, types of data  
 
Tables and probability – construct a sample space for one or more events, find probabilities from a sample space, finding probabilities from two way tables and Venn diagrams, using the product rule for finding possible outcomes 

In class 45 minute non-calculator assessment to include:  
 
Ratio and scale  
 
Multiplicative change  
 
Multiplying and dividing fractions  
 
Working in the cartesian plane. 

Music

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

All About the Bass: bass clef notation, recapping treble clef notation, different types of bass lines, extended right hand technique on the keyboard, simple left hand accompaniments. 

 

Notation test 

Practical keyboard assessment 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Complete Keyboard Performances 

 

 

 

Film Music: uses of music in films. Musical devices used to create film music. Creating music for different scenes in films. Cue sheets 

 

 Final keyboard skills practical assessment. 

Bass clef notation test 

 

Feedback on film music composition work. 

Listening exercises 

PE

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Click on this link to view full details of the PE curriculum and assessment information *Plans of study on website for individual activities and rotation dates.   

Trampolining - Boys 

Netball - Girls 

Rugby - Boys 

Badminton - Girls 

Interhouse Football  

*students will study two of these activities throughout their rotation. 

Verbal formative assessment of skills and knowledge, understanding and application in conditioned and competitive conditions. 

Completion of core task at beginning and end of block of work. 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

 

Verbal formative assessment of skills and knowledge, understanding and application in conditioned and competitive conditions. 

Completion of core task at beginning and end of block of work. 

Science

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Different science groups may have a slightly different rota through each term.  This rota is based on a 3 teacher route. By the end of terms 2, 4 and 6 each group will have covered the same topics – more details are available on the science website.

 

Introduction to Science Careers

  • Working Scientifically
  • Types of scientific research and peer review
  • Darwin’s finches and how to test a theory
  • Moments and collecting data
  • Types of levers
  • Brownian motion
  • Investigation skills

 

Organisms 2

  • Breathing
  • Gas Exchange
  • Disease and lifestyle
  • Healthy diet
  • Human digestive system

Weekly EDUCAKE homework throughout the year.

Always set on a Monday, Due in on Sunday

(NB One group will have 3 teachers instead of two and will spread the teacher 2 topics between them over 2 terms instead of 1 per term.  At Christmas, Easter and the summer this group will be in exactly the same position as the other groups and will do the same assessments)

 

Quick check – end of topic test

 

 

 

 

Quick check – end of topic test

 

 

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

 

Matter 2

  • The Periodic Table
  • Metals
  • Non-metals
  • Patterns in the Periodic Table
  • Compounds
  • Polymers, ceramics and composites

 

 

Force 2

  • Equilibrium
  • Drag
  • Stretch and compression
  • Hooke’s Law
  • Pressure
  • Floating and sinking

 

 

Assessment from year 7 topics.

 

 

 

 

 

Quick check – end of topic test

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick check – end of topic test

Spanish

Curriculum Information Term 1

Assessment information Term 1

Recap of phonics.

Using the present tense, opinions & instructional language to talk about school subjects, teachers, rules and facilities.

Using high level structures to discuss what you would change.

Using the 1st person preterite to say what you did at school the previous day/week.

Cumulative scores from 5 vocabulary quizzes

Writing: Four word question (FQ2)

Curriculum Information Term 2

Assessment information Term 2

Recap of phonics.

Using the present tense, opinions & instructional language to talk about school subjects, teachers, rules and facilities.

Using high level structures to discuss what you would change.

Using the 1st person preterite to say what you did at school the previous day/week.

Cumulative scores from 5 vocabulary quizzes

Reading/Grammar: Grammar gap fill questions