Key Stage 2 (Year 3 to Year 6)
Key Stage 2 is the second phase of the curriculum, building on the achievements and strengths from Key Stage 1.
In Key Stage 2 we cover the following subjects:
- English
- Maths
- IPC (Science, History, Geography, and International Learning)
- Arabic, Islamic and Qatar History
- Computing
- PE
- Music
- Art
- PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education)
For the majority of each day, the children are based with their class teacher. In each class, the children are taught English, Maths, IPC (Science, Geography, History and Art), ICT (including Computing), and PSHE, with experienced specialist teachers covering the remaining areas of the curriculum (Arabic subjects, Music and PE). In Years 3 to 6, children will receive specialised teaching in Computing and Art. All children also visit the library once per week. Class and specialist teachers are responsible for monitoring students’ progress and ensuring that students achieve according to their ability and their personal targets.
English:
English as a subject is divided up into Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening. These are all different elements that are combined to help a learner acquire a new language. Teachers plan carefully using the National Curriculum for England (2014) standards to ensure that learners reach the expected attainment each year. In Year 6, our children are also taught study skills in preparation for their transition to the secondary school.
Reading:
At The Gulf English School we have a guided reading scheme which students move through from Reception to Year 6. We teach the full range of National Curriculum reading skills such as decoding and encoding words, using picture and contextual clues, and comprehension. Guided Reading at Key Stage 2 is taught in small groups and during whole class lessons. These are run by the class teacher as well as trained teaching assistants.
Writing:
Wherever possible, we link writing to real life experiences and encourage students to talk about their writing with meaning. Talk for Writing strategies are used to improve all students’ writing skills. Students learn about more complex sentence and text structure, writing for purpose, composing writing for maximum effect, grammar, and spelling. As in Key Stage 1, we also focus on teaching different writing types such as story writing, letters, non-chronological text, poetry, traditional tales, etc. All these form part of the National Curriculum expectations.
Speaking and Listening:
We firmly believe that speaking and listening forms the basis for all language acquisition. Children are encouraged to explore language in real meaningful ways. We focus on the elements of a good speaker and listener and we teach these skills during our English lessons. We believe that when learners are confident in their own spoken language skills they will venture out and try new things. Children feel confident when they have a solid vocabulary and the skills to convey their knowledge in response to various tasks.
Maths:
Our Maths curriculum ensures that appropriate connections are made between the National Curriculum expectations on 'number', 'shape, space and measures', and 'handling data'.
During Key Stage 2, students use the number system more confidently. They move from counting reliably to calculating fluently with all four number operations (+,-, x, ÷). Our children are encouraged to always try to tackle a problem using mental methods before using any other approach. Students explore features of shape and space and develop their measuring skills in a range of contexts. They discuss and present their methods and reasoning using a wide variety of mathematical language, diagrams and charts. Our children are given opportunities to apply their skills and understanding in practical and meaningful ways, often making links with other areas of the curriculum.
International Primary Curriculum
(Science, History, Geography, and International Learning)
Children learn about Science, History, Geography and develop their understanding of the wider world (International Learning) by following the International Primary Curriculum. We follow a clear route plan that ensures the IPC units taught in each year group cover the appropriate National Curriculum standards for these subjects. The IPC structure for learning allows all students to explore their prior knowledge of a particular subject before starting a learning process that allows them to gain a deeper understanding of the area they are learning about before reaching an ‘exit’ point where children will be encouraged to share their learning with a wider audience, which often includes parents.
In the science elements of IPC during Key Stage 2, students learn about a wider range of living things, materials, and phenomena. They begin to make links between ideas and also begin to explain things using simple models and theories. They apply their knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas to familiar phenomena, everyday things, and their personal health. They begin to think about the positive and negative effects of scientific and technological developments on the environment and in other contexts. They carry out more systematic investigations, working on their own and with others. We encourage children to talk about their work and its significance, and communicate ideas using a wide range of scientific language, conventional diagrams, charts and graphs. Students are assessed according to the IPC framework and National Curriculum levels.
In the History and Geography elements of IPC, students are taught using planned IPC units which allow for a focused, learning-centred approach. During a topic, children may learn about both geography and significant events in history. Topics include: Rainforests, Weather and Climate, Ancient Egypt, and Chocolate.
ICT and Computing
At The Gulf English School, ICT is used to support learning throughout the curriculum. Every class has an interactive whiteboard, access to class iPads as well as computers in the library, and a dedicated ICT suite of computers. Traditional ICT skills teaching includes Internet research and digital citizenship, word processing, and creating presentations. We use a range of interactive educational websites to enhance learning across the curriculum which can be accessed from any computer with Internet access at school and at home. As well as this, dedicated computing lessons are taught in order to teach the essential new computing skills such as multimedia, databases, control and logic programming. These take place in the classrooms as well as in the ICT suite.
Art
In each class, Art is delivered by the class teacher using the IPC curriculum units and ensures all students develop their creative talents and skills. In addition, each year group receives a block of Art lessons by a Specialist Art Teacher each year.
PE and Music
PE and Music are taught by our onsite experienced, specialist subject teachers. Each lesson is planned using the National Curriculum 2014 for that subject and is delivered in a fun and exciting way. In each subject, students are encouraged to develop a love for the subject and are often enabled to nurture a natural talent they did not know they had. Many of the skills gained in these areas can be enhanced through our wide range of sporting and creative extra-curricular activities.
Additional Support:
For a small number of students who are identified as needing additional support in order to access the school curriculum, we offer both learning support and specific English as an Additional Language (EAL) support. This allows students to receive additional, smaller group teaching in order to help them meet our school expectations. Students in need of additional support are identified on an on-going basis during the school year and we work closely with parents to ensure the correct and appropriate level of support is provided as needed. We work closely with all parents who have a child receiving support to ensure they are making progress and so that parents are clear about what skills their child is developing and need to continue to focus on, both in school and at home.
