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Warning: Curriculum Collapse happening…
My Teaching and Learning pieces over the past few terms have been full of Languages; the library opening, library competitions, English in focus, MFL in focus, MFL week, visiting authors and Storytelling experiences have been shared. With Drama on the curriculum and theatre trips in place for all year groups, not to mention the constant work going on with Reading Journey developments; I started to think if you might be wondering if your children actually had any other subjects on offer!?
This week we are celebrating the Core Academic Sciences – another area of learning in the St Peter’s School Baccalaureate ®. This Faculty includes: Science, Maths and Computing.
We are experiencing a ‘Curriculum Collapse’ … don’t panic … sounds terrifying, but is quite the opposite … an extraordinary week which the children will not forget in a hurry … and it all happens during Week 6. A week of investigation, prediction, method and conclusion.
Much of our continually changing ‘Sciences’ curriculum uses the principles of key educational research. Dr Evans and her team have been inspirational contributors to the St Peter’s School Baccalaureate ®Curriculum – we have a team of practitioners who are committed to learning about how children learn best.
Imagine Dr Evans and my joy when we read the following article in December, last year. It talks about the importance of research within the classroom.
Written by Sir Kevin Collins (who was knighted in 2015 for services to education) he says:-
As a teacher …
“You need a body of knowledge that comes together…teaching is the orchestration of a huge range of knowledge at once. That is why it is so complicated.”
We had a feeling back in 2010 when we began our research into best educational practices and theory (with the whole staff team) that it was going to come in handy. There is still a ‘buzz’ among the staff who do find some new piece of educational pedagogy that makes sense to them – when they ask if they can try something new out in their rooms to put research into practice – you will never guess what the answer is at St Peter’s?
If you have any further questions about this St Peter’s School Baccalaureate ® area of learning, please do not hesitate to contact the Faculty Head, Dr Rowan Evans.
Our many thanks go to the clever staff leading this STEM extravaganza … I present to you our Core Academic Sciences Faculty team:
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Vision Statement for the Faculty of Academic Sciences
The Faculty of Academic Sciences is made up of three key areas of Learning: Mathematics, Science and Computing. From Nursery to Year 3 all three subjects are taught in classes. Subject Specialists teach Science from Year 4 upwards in one of our new Science Labs.
From Year 5, both Mathematics and ICT are taught by specialists. Mathematics is taught in levelled groups from the start of Year 5, whereas both Science and Computing are taught in tutor groups for both Years 5 and 6. In Years 7 and 8 the pupils are separated into a Scholarship group and an All Round group, depending on their choice of Senior School.
Mathematics: At St Peter’s, we believe mathematics is more than just a subject – it is a way of thinking. This makes it a key subject in preparing your children for the jobs of tomorrow. In the future they will be using technologies that are yet to be invented and will be expected to produce solutions in areas where we are yet to foresee any problems. Working closely with other STEM subjects, it is our aim to develop the problem solvers of tomorrow by delivering a fully enriched mathematics curriculum here at St Peter’s. Plac- ing mathematical reasoning, precision of thought, and fluency in using basic mathematical techniques at its core so that pupils are able to think clearly when solving interesting problems.
Science: As soon as children are old enough to talk, they start to ask questions about the world around them. Science is the perfect subject to complement this natural curiosity. Here at St Peter’s we aim to encourage this curiosity through hands on practical experi- mentation from the very first science lessons in Nursery to the last in Year 8. These scientific investigations encourage our children to develop key life skills such as perseverance, problem-solving and researching. It also fosters a love and enthusiasm for science – remember using Bunsen Burners for the first time? This produces a curriculum that we know will inspire our students to believe that one day they could be responsible for solving one of the problems facing our world, such as the flooding caused by climate change or developing a new variety of wheat that will help feed the world’s hungry. This gives our students frequent opportunities to devel- op the three overriding skills of our Baccalaureate “Curiosity” , “Finding” and “Presenting”.
Computing: Computing at St Peter’s is a rich, multifaceted subject that encompasses many aspects of the mathematic and science curriculum. Our computing curriculum strives to excite our children as we deliver a rich and high-quality computing experience ensuring that computational thinking is at its core. Computational thinking makes the impossible possible; creates solutions to problems in everyday life and encourages creativity. Here at St Peter’s we have iPads, chrome books and laptops available to the children and this hardware gives the children opportunities to experience three different computing platforms whilst developing their compu- ting experiences using the five computing strands of programming, multimedia, handling data, internet safety and technology in our lives.
