First Form CURRICULUM GUIDE
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First Form CURRICULUM GUIDE JUNE 2020 Contents The Lower School ................................................................ 3 The First Form ...................................................................... 4 Subjects ............................................................................... 7 Art and Design ............................................................ 7 Classics - Latin ............................................................ 8 Drama .......................................................................... 9 English ....................................................................... 10 French ........................................................................ 12 Geography ................................................................ 14 History ....................................................................... 15 IT and Computing .................................................... 16 Mandarin ................................................................... 17 Mathematics ............................................................. 17 Music .......................................................................... 18 Physical Education and Games .............................. 20 Swimming ................................................................. 20 PSHE and Citizenship .............................................. 22 Religion and Philosophy ......................................... 22 Science ...................................................................... 22 School library .................................................................... 25 Great novels for young adults - Reading list ..................... 27 The Lower School As your child begins First Form, the traditional entry point for secondary education, the pace of teaching, and their learning, will quicken. The main aim of this booklet is to familiarise you and your child with what they will be enjoying over the next academic year. I hope that you are familiar with the core values of the School because they run through many of the things that your son will experience this year and beyond. Making friends and treating people equally is an absolute priority. As soon as they start the First Form, your child will be encouraged to take greater responsibility for organising themselves and their work. They will be supported by their Form Tutor and subject teachers on how to present work, organise themselves, use a locker correctly and manage their time well. Your child will also be encouraged to make the most of the numerous and wide-ranging extra-curricular opportunities on offer to them. Whatever their passion may be, CLS will endeavour to cater for it and opportunities to represent their form or school are commonplace. We believe that providing scope for pupils to develop outside of the classroom is of great importance and encourage all our pupils to live a full school life. Your child’s progress will be guided by his subject teachers, form tutor and Head of Year. My role, as Head of Lower School, will be to monitor this progress and ensure that your child is on course to achieve their best during his time in the Lower School. I want to make certain that over the next three years before your child enters the Middle School and begins their GCSEs that they have the knowledge, working habits, emotional wellbeing, resilience and determination required to meet the challenges that will face them. I hope that you find this booklet helpful and that it is useful in helping you understand what the year ahead has in store for your child. Mr Chris Apaloo HEAD OF LOWER SCHOOL [email protected] The First Form While a pupil at CLS, there will be high expectations placed upon your son to ensure that he is stretched to maximise his potential. We as a school will ensure that we have the appropriate measures in place to cater for all your son’s needs, while guiding him in the right direction so he can engage in a variety of co-curricular activities alongside his academic studies. If parents have any concerns, they should seek out the form tutor as a first port of call, this allows a smooth process alleviating any apprehension and ensures that the working relationship between the school and you is a positive one and vice versa with the form tutor contacting you about your son’s progress. Throughout the course of the year, there will be a wealth of inter-form competitions to be engaged with ranging from Football to crosswords to debating. The fantastic spirit of the competitions allows the chance for all pupils to contribute and play a crucial role in the holistic development of CLS pupils while at the school. Boys will also earn commendations where they produce an exceptional piece of work or make an outstanding contribution to the school. An accumulation of commendations will lead to special rewards include congratulation letters home, awarding of book tokens and special mentions in year assemblies! During the year, there will be two Parents’ Evenings (November and March) when you will be invited to meet the staff who teach your son (boys do not attend Parents’ Evenings until Fourth Form). You and your son will be invited to an Induction Afternoon in the Autumn Term. You will get a Progress Card at October half-term (this will go to the Parent Portal and you can find the nomenclature for the reporting here) and a further one in December (with Head of Year and Head of Section comments) and a further one at February half-term. There will also be a fulsome Report at the end of Summer Term; there will have been a separate Progress Card with Exam Results. You and your son will also be invited to an Induction Afternoon in the Autumn Term. Each boy has a Homework Diary which parents (and Form Tutors) are asked to sign once a week and add comments if appropriate. You will receive a copy of your son’s timetable and homework timetable early in the Autumn Term. Ensuring their homework diary is signed weekly keeps your son on a clear routine and provides them with a greater ownership of their learning. My role as Head of Year is to work closely in collaboration with subject teachers to monitor progress of every pupil in the First Form. This ensures that they succeed with their studies and are equipped with all the necessary tools to achieve their best in every subject. The progress of your son will be tested regularly during each term and close contact with subject teachers allow for interventions to be introduced if necessary. Subjects ■ Classics ■ IT & Computing Purple IT: Information Technology ■ Art & Design ■ Mandarin Mathematics Drama ■ ■ Orange ■ Music ■ English Lavender Grey ■ PSHE PSHE: Personal, Social & Health Education ■ French (+ ■ Fr. vocab) Light Green / Pink ■ PE, Games & Swimming PE: Physical Education Geography ■ Religion and Philosophy Light Blue ■ Yellow ■ History ■ Science Red Dark Green The colours in brackets (■■■■■■■■■■ ) refer to the colours of exercise books for these subjects. Boys will get a print out of this which they can keep in their lockers for reference. Please do not hesitate to get in touch, should you have any immediate concerns or questions, and I look forward to meeting you in due course. Mr Ben Medlock HEAD OF FIRST FORM [email protected] Art and Design 7 Art and Design The Art and Design Department aims to encourage creative thinking, develop design skills and increase artistic ability in all our students. Members of staff in the department are enthusiastic, multi-skilled and very keen to pass on their own passion for art and design. Boys will experience a variety of media, processes, techniques and technologies, and will begin to develop proficiency in many of the basic skills of Art and Design. The boys will experience the following areas of practice: drawing and painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture and workshop practice where students work with materials such as hard and soft woods, pewter and acrylic; work is often produced using IT and the laser cutter. First Form classes are split into two and taught by two members of staff (one Art teacher and one D&T teacher). The groups switch between Art and D&T approximately halfway through the year. Boys attend two periods a week in the department, are taught in small groups and teaching in First Form is generally project based. In Art lessons, work is focused on the theme ‘World of Colour’. In D&T the focus is on applying skills and making products, such as acrylic torches and wooden clocks. Homework is set fortnightly, and is used to build on and enhance classroom work. Occasionally they will receive more demanding extended homework projects, which will be completed over a longer period of time. Each boy will have a sketchbook which he is encouraged to use properly, recognising the importance of the sketchbook in both art and design activities. Over the course of the year, boys will be introduced to basic studio and workshop techniques and safety practices, and will experience ‘resistant materials’ such as wood, metal and plastic as well as a range of mark- making media such as paint, pencil, markers, charcoal and pastel. They will also have the opportunity to experience working in a three- dimensional medium, such as clay or Modroc. 8 Classics - Latin Boys’ work is featured in exhibitions to coincide with parents’ evenings and school events such as concerts. Work by First Form boys is also exhibited in the Old Grammar and First Form corridor, and in other parts of the school. During their time in First