The Strategic Planning Workshop held in the third term of last year served to highlight a number of objectives that the school needed to work towards. Amongst these was the need to have an in-depth look at the school’s curriculum with the view in mind of shaping learning and teaching at the school and finding ways of developing a progressive continuum of subject and life-specific skills that underpin the brand of education that we offer. The time-consuming process of identifying core curriculum content taught at each grade level and linking the teaching of relevant skills to this has begun and subject and departmental heads as well as grade and phase heads are hard at work within their sections of the school attending to this need. The ultimate aim is to establish, through best teaching practice in the various learning areas, a relevant curriculum and academic skills programme that is both continuous and progressive and that will best serve the interests of our pupils as they work towards their Matric year.
P.J.Cook (Curriculum Development)
Cross-curricular teaching in the Middle School
An exciting development on the academic front is the launch of this cross-curricular teaching and learning initiative for our grade 7, 8 and 9 students. The idea of Academic Head for the College, Karen Anderson, and spearheaded by Mrs Belinda Waldapfel, the approach incorporates aspects of the much vaunted Finnish Curriculum Objectives and serves to equip students with contextualised learning that is both experiential and integrated. Three lessons in each 10 day cycle will be devoted to this approach. Routine learning in these classes will not consist of stereotypical lessons with pupils seated in rows and with minimal opportunities to follow guided, inter-active learning programmes. Rather, pupils will be encouraged to inter-act freely and work collaboratively to achieve clearly defined outcomes to specific tasks and challenges. By identifying learning outcomes for English; HSS; N\S; Technology and L\O and promoting the acquisition of them, it is felt that our pupils will be best-advantaged to resume learning programmes of a more formal nature in the FET phase. Further, it is felt that by reinforcing selected learning skills whilst following this cross-curricular thematic approach, our pupils will be equipped with the learning and processing skills required to prosper in the FET phase.
The Finnish Department of Education describes this approach in their Upper Secondary levels as : “Cross-curricular themes are educational challenges with social significance. They are current statements on values. They cross subject boundaries and integrate education and deal with issues concerning way of life as a whole.” This definition fits our Middle School aspirations well.
Themes for the first term are:
• Grade7: “Being South African.” An understanding of the peopling of South Africa; its languages and traditions and what it takes to build a nation.
• Grade 8: South Africa’s World Heritage Sites with special emphasis on the development of research skills.
• Grade 9: “Modern Sustainable Life-styles” with special emphasis on “Green” architecture and related environmental issues.
The learning focus will therefore be on :
• Reading and Comprehension
• Research Skills
• Critical Thinking
• Collaborative Learning
• Oral Presentation
• Language and Writing
• Earth Science
• Design\Technology
• Environmental Learning
Along with our stated academic intention to promote opportunities to develop critical thinking and boost literacy and numeracy levels, this should go a long way towards preparing our pupils to not only handle the rigours of the FET phase, but also to feel comfortable in their role as meaningful contributors to South African society both now and in the future.
P.J.Cook (Curriculum Development)
