At Farmor's School the curriculum is at the heart of the education we offer. As a result, young people experience a rich and varied curriculum, which is a conscious blend of the traditional and the contemporary. Our students study a wide range of subjects through ambitious, well-designed courses that challenge them intellectually, encourage them to be curious about the world and equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in life and make a difference to the wider world.
All our teachers are specialists in the their subjects and plan a curriculum that reflects the best that has been thought and said in each discipline. Core knowledge is taught explicitly and regularly returned to so that students build new knowledge upon prior knowledge. We use low stakes assessments in class to reinforce learning and address misconceptions. In addition, all year groups have more formal assessments once a year in the Sports Hall, to prepare them for the experience of sitting GCSE and A level exams.
We keep our curriculum as broad as possible, for as long as possible to allow all students to become knowledgeable and confident, with a strong focus on reading throughout every subject discipline. At Farmor's we are committed to widening our students' horizons with a wonderful range of curriculum trips, speakers and visits. Many are local and low cost like our year 7 Geography trip to the River Coln and year 9 Design and Technology trip to RIAT. We also offer the opportunity for students to go further afield for example our History trip to the World War 1 battlefieds and our sports tours to countries like Sri Lanka and South Africa. In Languages students have the opportunity for a residential trip in France or Spain during Keystage 3 to experience the culture as well as develop their confidence in speaking the language. Our STEM offer includes a free trip to Williams Formula One and the opportunity to go to Bletchly Park. Many of our GCSE courses also offer enriching trips, such as Art and Textiles trips to Kelmscot and Bristol to see artists' work first hand. High quality careers education, information, advice and guidance is built into each key stage to support students with their next steps.
We have a common teaching framework at Farmor's to ensure all students are thinking hard and we explicitly teach students how to develop good habits of success. Our students learn in a calm, orderly and predictable environment so they can all concentrate without disruption. All students in years 7 through to 10 carry their own mini whiteboard and pen. They use their mini whiteboard in most lessons to answer questions and develop their thinking. They might hold up their boards on a count of three, so teachers can see where the misconceptions might be. We encourage all students to answer questions, even if they don't put their hand up. This means everyone must think and be alert in the lesson. We also encourage our students to discuss their thinking with their partners to deepen their understanding.
These teaching strategies support all our students to be successful and are especially useful for our students with special educational needs. In addition, we make sure our teaching is inclusive by:
Our intention is for students to study the same broad and balanced curriculum up to the end of Year 9, which is a three-year KS3 curriculum. The National Curriculum is the basis for the curriculum in each subject area, with subjects then choosing to supplement this with content that they feel is both relevant and useful.
We believe that the entire educational experience is valuable to students in preparing them for their future lives. We aim to give students powerful knowledge through the curriculum and transformational experiences through their participation in educational visits, clubs and other co-curricular opportunities. Our values – Integrity, Fellowship and Endeavour – underpin our approach to curriculum.
Groupings: Most subjects are taught in mixed ability groups throughout KS3, which means that all students are taught the same curriculum. In subjects which are set, students will still experience the same curriculum, but at a pace which is appropriate for them to secure a good level of understanding. Mathematics and PE is set broadly from year 7 onwards, and science from year 9.
Languages: Students study either Spanish or French from year 7 and will study this language through until the end of year 9.
Timetable:
We run a two-week timetable, split up into 50 periods each of 60 minutes duration. The number next to each subject indicates the number of 60-minute periods allocated to that subject each fortnight.
The diagram below sets out the KS4 curriculum which is followed by students in Years 10 and 11. Students are asked to make four subject option choices as they move into Year 10 from the list shown. All students in year 10 study two periods per fortnight of non-examined religious studies and one period per fortnight of PSHE.
Key Stage 3 (KS3) is the stage in each child’s education covering years 7, 8 and 9 in secondary school.
At the classroom level, teachers use informal assessment to check students’ understanding of the main curriculum elements. This might be through questions, use of mini-whiteboards, short quizzes or through an observation of work as it progresses. They then respond appropriately through their teaching, with an expectation that the information is used not only for identifying gaps in students’ knowledge, skills and depth of understanding, but also to inform future lessons.
At the department level, each department has set out how they will periodically establish the overall progress a student is making using a broad range of assessment materials such as end-of-unit testing, essays, artefacts or performances.
At the whole school level, we have set out assessment windows across the year in which students will sit formal assessments. To prepare students for formal GCSE exams, some of these assessments are sat in standard conditions in the school sports hall.
Key Stage 4 (KS4) is the stage in each child’s education covering years 10 and 11 in secondary school and is the period when GCSE courses are studied.
GCSEs are graded 1 – 9 where 9 is the highest award and 1 the lowest. A Grade 4 is considered the level that students must achieve without needing to re-sit either English or maths post-16.
As with KS3, staff continually assess students’ progress in lessons through a wide variety of assessments, questioning and writing tasks. In preparation for GCSE exams, students also sit a formal suite of GCSE papers at the end of year 10 and a set of mock papers in December of year 11. The mocks are sat in exam conditions in the sports hall and results are given to students in January at a results event to mirror their experience of getting the GCSE grades in August. Assessments in KS4 are reported to parents and students as GCSE grades.
The purpose of reports is to communicate readiness to learn and attainment data to parents and students.
We are currently in the process of reviewing and updating our reporting system.
The style of report differs between year groups, but broadly speaking each student will receive:
· Three reports per year (November, March and June)
· One parents’ evening in each year group at KS3 and KS4 and in the Sixth Form
For years 11-13 the first report contains information about students’ effort.
For years 7-10 it contains information about students’ ‘Readiness to Learn’ and a comment from each teacher on ‘How to Improve’.
The additional information that the March and July reports contain is assessment data. This data is in percentage scores for years 7 to 9 and in grades for years 10 to 13.
All information about impending reports, parents’ evenings and other important things is communicated in the weekly Parent Bulletin.
Curriculum Head: Emma White (Deputy Head)
Contact: ewhite@farmors.gloucs.sch.uk