Learning Reimagined

LOWER SCHOOL CAMPS

Year 6 camp dune diving

Year 6 camp campfire singing Year 5 camp country park exploring

Year 5 camp rain doesn’t stop ice cream

Year 5 camp evening entertainment

Year 6 camp canoeing

UPPER SCHOOL

LEARNING REIMAGINED

This year saw the introduction of a more integrated curriculum in Year 7 as KAS continues to look for ways to update the education model to meet the needs of students

Our new group of Year 7 students have benefitted from some changes as they began their Upper School journey. With a dedicated building serving as their home base, this new approach was inspired by education in Finland, Singapore and globally through the International Baccalaureate.

A third of their timetable has been dedicated to enquiry projects which integrate three subjects in order to answer an overarching question. This approach requires pupils to apply skills and knowledge learnt in one discipline to the context of another, more closely mimicking how we use knowledge in the workplace and a skill which is the hallmark of a more sophisticated cognitive level.

BIG QUESTIONS

In each term, students investigated a ‘big question’ through a combination of subject lessons and cross-curricular learning activities.

‘Physical World’ projects have combined Science, Maths, Design and Physical Geography. The students have investigated important questions such as:

• How did early humans survive? • Is space tourism ethical? • Will it be possible for humans to live on another planet? • What are the optimum conditions to grow a microcrop?

In ‘Human World’ projects have combined English, History and Art. The students have enquired into similarly important questions:

• How do communities form and express their identity? • Why have people migrated in the past and why do they continue to do so? • How should we commemorate the end of the slave trade?

Presenting to parents Robert visits the Space and Migration exhibition

Learning to light fires

Exhibition in new 6-8 space

EXHIBITIONS

Each project culminated in a mini-exhibition or presentation. Parents and staff have been invited in to witness students presenting ‘communal identity’ collages, survival shelters, space research articles, space display boards, migration ‘zines’, slave trade memorials and microcrop-growing systems. These presentations gave impetus and an audience to the end of each project and provided students with a real sense of achievement.

Students presenting their work on Space and Migration

STUDENT REACTIONS

“We had to work as a team to progress and support each other.” “I enjoyed learning how to make the fire because we were outdoors and we were doing something that would actually be useful when we are older.” “I found it really interesting to learn about different cultures.” “We were really independent and worked in groups of new people, which I wouldn’t do normally.”