St. John’s Curriculum Year 7 2013-14

Year 7 Curriculum Overview – 2013-14 Term

Dates

Duration

Main Module Titles

Term 1

4th Sept’ – 13th Sept

1 week / 3 days

Tools of The Trade

Terms 1-2

16th Sept - 20th Dec

12 weeks / 4 days

The Nature of Man & The Nature of the Beast

Terms 3-4

6th Jan - 4th April

12 weeks

The Genius of the Past & The Inventions of The Future

Terms 5-6

22nd April - 18th July

12 weeks

The Power of Humans & The Power of Nature

This Curriculum has been designed so that the interrelationship between each module is both cohesive and scaffolded. Each module relates to its partner module, builds on prior learning and prepares students for future learning through the synthesis of knowledge. The student is placed at the centre of the journey, exploring their understanding of themselves from micro- to macro- levels. Detailed below, as an example, is an extract from Year 7, Term 1.

The Power Of Nature

Term 6

The Power Of Humans

Term 5

The Inventions of the Future (ie. My Future)

The Genius of the Past

Term 4

(ie. My Past)

Term 3

The Nature of the Beast

Term 2

(ie. "Me and Them")

The Nature of Man

Term 1

(ie. "Me")

Tools of The Trade

Term 1

Year 7

The Nature of Man & the Nature of the Beast Terms 1&2

The Nature of Man Term 1 16th Sept - 25th Oct

Module Overview: the aim of this module is to give students the opportunity to explore their understanding of themselves, to question their identity, and to share this information with their peers. The individual student and their experiences form the basis for all lessons – it’s all about “Me”. This journey allows students to learn about their mind, their body, their personal history and their immediate environment. Module Questions: the key questions guiding us through this module are: -Who am I? -What makes me unique? -What shapes who I am - my genes, my experiences or my environment? St. John’s Skills: the key skills areas for development in this module include: - Self-reliance (from Citizenship Skills): students to explore how they might manage aspects of their learning - Diversity (from Citizenship Skills): students to respect and value the diversity they see around them - Communication (from People Skills): students to develop different strategies for communication - Reflection (from Information Skills): students to reflect upon and deepen their understanding of themselves

Tutor

Introducing getting to know you Exploring and unpacking Key St. John’s Skills for Term 1 in detail

English

Maths

Roald Dahl’s Boy – Autobiographical writing: Students will use Roald Dahl’s ‘Boy’, or another biography of their choice, to look at the genre of biographical writing. They will use these to analyse language choices, style and genre conventions, and do some autobiographical writing of their own Numeracy Passport: Start Numeracy Passport (Individual booklet that student will use throughout the year reinforcing the basics of numeracy), Number Operations (The building blocks of mathematics); History of number (History of number systems from around the world, where did numbers originate, create your own number system) Order of Operations and Negative numbers (what happens if I go overdrawn at the bank?)

Science

What Am I Made Of?: Cells & Reproduction (Biology) What am I made of, Elements and Compounds

Art

Self-portrait: focusing on physical, accurate human proportions

Classics / Latin

Who were the Romans?: Family at Vindolanda, family Tree, vocabulary about self, Minimus Chapters 1 & 2 (nouns and adjectives) Story of Pandora: artwork – what’s in the box? Assessment: writing as character. Links: History – the Romans, MFL – vocabulary of self and family, P&R – nature of God/gods PowerPoint Quiz: students create an interactive quiz about themselves (including questions raised from other curriculum areas)

Computing / ICT Drama

Mime and Mask: Students will explore the conventions of “Mime and Mask” and how human beings communicate with their bodies as well as their voice. Students explore who they are (and express own identity) through gesture and body language rather than speech

DT

Rotation 1: Graphics Project – Students design and make a leaflet dispenser based on themselves. Could possibly include aspects of their interests, hobbies and experiences. This dispenser will contain a leaflet written by students, which collates a range of information about themselves gathered from across the curriculum (ie. a photo of their self-portrait from Art, an extract from their Autobiographical writing in English, etc.)

Geography

Local Geography: where they live; where others (peers?) live; map skills

History

Local history: focusing on local history, thinking about change and continuity from the Iron Age to the Normans, recognising how they can find evidence of these periods in their local surroundings

MFL

Describing self: Students describe their own and their family’s physical appearance. They will be able to give some information about themselves (such as their age, where they live, when their birthday is). Students will create a recorded commentary to describe the self-portrait that they will be creating in Art lessons. They will also learn to ask questions relating to physical descriptions and basic information to describe their family physically and give basic information about them.

Music

(Lessons per week: Purple Band = 2x French / 1x German; White Band = 2x French /1x Spanish) Self-expression: students learn self-expression through creative composition (using the elements: pitch, rhythm, dynamics, texture, pulse, structure, tempo, silence) that expresses their individuality (mood/character)

PE / Games

Games: base-line testing “What are my current skills and abilities as an individual?” (i.e. Fundamental skills of speed, agility, co-ordination) Dance: Students create dance based on self and how they have evolved from basic / animal movements to more sophisticated routines. Week 1 will be a task based on who and I and the use of their name. This will be followed by an animal based task, and in week 6 there will be the performance/assessment.

P&R

Nature of God: Students explore their own beliefs about God and learn to articulate these both in words and imagery. Students also explore how the concept of God is understood within different religious traditions eg. Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. They become aware of how there are different ‘models of God’ across different traditions and are able to articulate those, as well as comparing this with their own understanding.