Curriculum Overview Half Term 2
Year 8
Dear Parent/Carer,
In the following booklet you should find an overview of what your child will be studying this half term in school. We’ve included key details on what they will be looking at in each subject, how they’ll be assessed and what they might do to further develop their understanding. The aim is for this to make it easier for you to work with the school supporting your child with their work.
All lessons last for one hour. In Year 8, students study the following subjects:
• English, Maths and Science – three lessons per week per subject
• Geography, History, Physical Education, First language option and Second language option – two lessons per week per subject
• Art, Design Technology, Food & Textiles, Music and Religious Education – one lesson per week per subject
The information for each subject is categorised as follows:
Topics / tasks: This is the overview of the topics Year 8 students will be covering this half term.
Content and skills: This explains what areas students will be looking at, and the skills they will be developing during the half term.
Assessment: This explains how students will be assessed on their understanding of this topic.
Stretch and challenge: This gives suggestions of how students can explore this area in more detail if they wish.
Topics / tasks: Portraiture, Drawing, Photography and Contextual Studies
Summary of first half term: Pupils have been exploring how to create a traditional portrait drawing, learning about proportion and attention to detail.
• Pupils will continue with portrait drawing, spending time creating a refined, shaded outcome aiming for realism.
Content and skills:
• During this term, pupils will also explore other styles or portrait drawing and will investigate what makes a ‘successful’ drawing.
• Pupils will start using their phone/camera is recording and creating fine art style photographic portraits. Learning how to capture a mood, atmosphere and strong narrative. Editing images in creating a range of effects in relation to the work of other artists.
• Pupils will learn to analysis and comment of the work of artists, referencing the elements and principles of art and design.
Assessment:
Pupils will receive feedback throughout the lesson with teacher/pupil conversations. Positive developmental comments will be shared as the work progresses. Work uploaded to Teams will receive acknowledgement and developmental comments when appropriate. Basic technical skills will be assessed, but not over the imaginative and creative. Control of materials and understanding of the formal elements will be mapped and used in relation to feedback.
During any absence, pupils are encouraged to send images of their work for feedback via MS Teams.
Creating a more extensive portfolio of work, challenging themselves in the subject matter drawn.
Stretch and challenge:
Taking greater risks and exploring the use of texture and space through more creative drawing techniques. Examples provided.
Further reading by exploring art museum websites and identifying artists the student likes. To then create outcomes and annotation based on these new artists without teacher direction.
Art
Topics / tasks:
Content and skills:
Computing
How to search for copyright free materials, how to recognise media files types and understand the legal implications of using resources created by others. How to edit sound and video, combining them for a specific purpose and audience.
• Skills development: Audacity Introduction to the software Audacity Mix Tape. Show and try editing and mixing tracks in audacity! Comply with copyright and patents act and creative commons (laws)!
• Pupils will evaluate good and poor features of media creation – this is to help them in their design work and during implementation.
• Skills development (SERIF, MS Video Editor or WeVideo)
• Storyboarding and product planning
• Students will create a Video aimed at other KS3 students on a topical issue.
• Sourcing relevant and information free of bias.
• Relevance of information & images
• Quality of information & images (may depend on what set e.g., 1950’s)
• Structure & layout
• Evaluative skills review and reflect (use of key terms)
Assessment: Storyboard (homework)
Features of Video Editing MC Quiz in Teams /15 Teacher assessment of final product (movie) D/S/E
Stretch and challenge:
Create a comic strip of your choice include your favourite character (real of fictional) using: plasq.com/downloads/comic life desktop/ this helps with storyboarding and planning. Create a movie for a different audience / purpose, showcasing your skills and ability to adapt www.howtogeek.com/355524/how to use windows 10s hidden video editor/ Film industry, learn about the key terms and key players news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/showbiz/film_industry/newsid_3523000/3523083.stm Marvel movies “behind the scenes” www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdq Grx4muk
Design Technology
Design Technology projects take place over the course of an entire term; this work therefore covers until Christmas.
Topics / tasks: Sustainable Travel Game or Sustainable Money Box.
Depending on rooming, students will either start a sustainable travel game project (computer room) or begin make a sustainable money box (workshop).
Sustainable Game Small scale storage
Content and skills:
• Investigate renewable and non renewable energy resources
• Write a Design specification for their own sustainable game
• Explore the sustainability of Papers & Boards
• Learn how to produce initial design and redraft them into suitable design solutions throughout the develop process.
• Understand the importance of Health and Safety when working in a workshop.
• Use CAD/CAM to produce prototypes
• Learn how to use a variety of tools and equipment to measure, mark out, cut and shape materials
• There will be a variety of assessments including assessing quality of completed practical work and ability to complete investigation in the form of a product analysis task.
Assessment:
• Students’ work will also be monitored safely throughout each lesson, thus ensuring that students are working to the best of their ability.
Stretch and challenge:
• Apply their knowledge and understanding of Papers & Boards by conducting research on the variety of different examples around the home.
• Complete product Analysis of board games that they have at home.
• Use textbooks / the internet to learn more about the tools and equipment you are using.
English
Topics / tasks: Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff Dystopia Writing
Reading
• Social, historical, political and literary contexts of WW1through the play Journey’s End and the poems ‘Who’s for the game’ by Jessie Pope and ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen.
Writing
• Writing to describe and narrate within the dystopian genre.
Content and skills:
• Studying the character development of key characters: Osborne, Raleigh and Stanhope.
• Studying the dramatic genre and methods used to create tension.
• Inferring and deducing meaning and viewpoint in a text
• Selecting and applying relevant evidence
• Communicating clearly and structuring written responses
• Studying extracts from a range of dystopian authors including George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, and Suzanne Collins.
• Using vocabulary, linguistic methods, sentence types and punctuation.
• Developing and structuring a range of imaginative ideas.
Assessment:
Complete a comprehension style test on the play, answering a range of questions, assessing different skills.
Writing the opening to a dystopian story.
Read dystopian novels by a range of authors for example:
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
Stretch and challenge:
Studying a wider range of WW1 literature such as the following war poets: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edna St Vincent Millay, Harold Begbie, Robert Laurence Binyon.
The Maze Runner series by James Dashner
Divergent series by Veronica Roth
The Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson
Floodland by Marcus Sedgewick
Exodus triology by Julie Bertanga
Food & Textiles
Topics / tasks: Theory Practical
Depending on rooming, students will either start a Food Preparation and Nutrition project or begin a Textiles project. Food Preparation and Nutrition
• Recap students understanding of health and safety in the cooking and preparation of food
Textiles
Content and skills:
• Specific dishes have been chosen for students to cook to build upon the skills gained in year 7, to challenge them and give them a wide variety of skills
• Students will learn a range of theory topics: hydration, food waste, scientific processes that happen during cooking e.g gelatinisation
• Recap on the safety of using the equipment in the Textiles room students use a wider range of equipment in year 8, e.g. the iron
• Design and create a textiles product for a specific target customer
• Students will carry out an iterative project that explores forces applied to materials
• Students will learn a range of theory topics: what is iterative design?, how to analyse and respond to a project brief as well as developing their research and product analysis skills
Assessment:
There will be a variety of assessments including assessing quality of completed practical work.
Students’ work will also be monitored throughout each lesson, to ensure that students are working to the best of their ability.
Stretch and challenge: Students are encouraged to adapt projects and recipes using the knowledge gained throughout the completion of their projects.
French
Topics / tasks:
Describing a past holiday to a French speaking destination. This will include using vocabulary and grammar from the first half term to describe where they went, how they travelled and what they did.
Content and skills:
Learning regular verbs in the past and future tenses along with common irregular verbs in the past tenses. Students will be taught the past tense with regular avoir verbs along with using the past tense with être verbs. Students will revisit vocabulary to express opinions and learn some ways to do this in past tenses.
Assessment:
Students will be assessed by regular vocabulary and grammar tests. There will also be a formal listening, reading and translation assessment on the topics of holidays.
Stretch and challenge: Learning more vocabulary on these topics and applying their grammar knowledge in writing tasks.
Geography
Topics / tasks: Population Urbanisation
Content and skills:
Students will examine the one and two child policies in China. Students will then examine the impact of humans on the environment and evaluate possible solutions to the challenges created.
Students will investigate the growth of urban areas around the world, examining the pattern and causes of urbanisation since the industrial revolution to today before focusing on a case study of a city in the UK.
Assessment: End of unit test on the topic of urbanisation. Key terms definition test
Stretch and challenge:
Listen to ‘Costing the Earth’ podcast on BBC radio 4, episodes available at: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006r4wn
Research an urban area that is growing rapidly e.g. Lagos in Nigeria. Examine the reasons why this is happening and the opportunities and challenges this creates for the people living there.
German
Topics / tasks: Pets and Colours
Content and skills:
Students will study the topic of pets, including a good range of vocabulary linked to the topic. As well as learning nouns for different animals and pets, they will learn colours and revisit adjectival agreements in the accusative case. They will also learn simple forms of the imperfect and the conditional. Students will learn how to use clues to help their understanding, how to use qualifiers to improve their writing and how to use cognates.
Assessment:
Students will be assessed by regular vocabulary and grammar tests. There will also be a formal listening, reading and translation assessment on the topics of family and pets.
Stretch and challenge: Learning more vocabulary on these topics and applying their grammar knowledge in writing tasks.
Topics / tasks: The reign of Mary I
History
Content and skills:
Students will be learning about the succession crisis and Lady Jane Grey, the counter-reformation and whether Mary deserves the title ‘Bloody Mary’.
Students will develop their skills of factual recall. Students will practice using specific detail to support arguments and counter arguments.
The reign of Elizabeth I
Students will be learning about the key events in the reign of Queen Elizabeth: the succession, marriage, her relationship with Mary Queen of Scots, and the relationship between England and Spain.
Assessment:
Completing a factual knowledge test on the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I.
Writing an essay. Students will answer the following question: Why did the English defeat the Spanish Armada? They must be able to use evidence and detail to explain why different events are significant and how they interacted.
Stretch and challenge:
Researching the succession of Mary, her relationship with Phillip II of Spain and her changes to the Church.
Reading Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen by Anna Whitelock.
Watching one of the many films about Elizabeth’s reign.
Using BBC Bitesize resources to provide additional context and detail
Latin
Topics / tasks: The Forum; Theatre; Slaves & freedmen Verb endings and the perfect & imperfect tenses
Content and skills:
How different types of evidence can be used together to build up a clearer picture of various aspects of Roman life; the role played by slaves in Roman life how people became slaves and how slaves became citizens.
How to check endings to confirm the tense & person of a verb and the function of a noun in a sentence; how to learn and revise vocabulary.
Assessment: An assessed task on Slavery and a language assessment, in addition to regular vocabulary tests.
Stretch and challenge:
Reading about Roman society and entertainment. There is a selection of suitable books available for students to borrow.
Topics / tasks: The topic of family and pets.
Mandarin
Content and skills:
Students will learn about family and pets. They will talk about family and pets using measure word and linking words. They will learn the vocabulary and Chinese Character related to the topics. They will learn the grammar of the linking word ‘He’; measure words ‘Kou’ ‘Ge’ and possessive ’De’. They will learn how to understand key information in listening. They will build confidence in speaking.
Assessment: In class, there will be vocabulary (characters) tests and practice of listening and reading tasks. Writing skills will be assessed in homework tasks. There will also be a formal listening, reading and translation assessment on numbers, greeting and family.
Stretch and challenge: Investigating Chinese measure words and finding out about extended Chinese families.
Maths
Topics / tasks:
Simplifying algebraic expressions Index Laws
Multiplying brackets and simplifying Factorising expressions Substitution
Solving linear equations
Content and skills:
• Revision and consolidation of previously learned skills
• Extension of skills to unfamiliar contexts
• Reasoning and problem solving skills
Assessment: Half term assessment 2
Stretch and challenge:
• Complete extra work using www.hegartymaths.com and www.corbettmaths.com
• Completing enrichment tasks on www.nrich.maths.org
Topics / tasks: Stage & Screen
Content and skills:
Assessment:
Stretch and challenge:
Music
Exploring the use of music in stage productions (opera, musical) and film (themes, underscore, etc.)
Analysing the music across the different film and theatre settings
Performing film theme music at the keyboard
Performing fluently and accurately at the keyboard, developing and improving technique
Completing assessed listening activities which will require pupils to respond to existing music for film and theatre, and make compositional suggestions according to a given theatrical setting
Listening to a wider range of music written for film and theatre using YouTube and other sources
Watching a favourite film and analysing the type of music used and the compositional techniques
Physical Education
PE units take place over the course of an entire term; this overview is therefore identical to last half term.
Topics / tasks: Fitness activities and invasion game skills.
Content and skills:
• Improving levels of cardio vascular fitness, core strength and speed.
• Developing games skills including movement with and without the ball.
Assessment: A timed cross country run and a conditioned game.
Stretch and challenge: Attending extra curricular clubs and participating in sports clubs outside school.
Religious Education
RE units take place over the course of an entire term; this overview is therefore identical to last half term.
Topics / tasks: Making Ethical Decisions
Content and skills:
Pupils will have the opportunity to explore a range of ethical issues including the Trolley Cart Problem posed by Philippa Foot. They will learn about deontological and teleological ethical approaches, the meaning of conscience and other key ethical principles such as the Principle of Utility and the Sanctity of Life. Religious approaches to ethical decision making will also be evaluated.
Pupils will develop skills of analysis, evaluation and critical thinking. The nature of the subject content will also develop their social, moral, spiritual and cultural awareness.
(a) A key concept vocabulary test.
Assessment:
(b) A timed piece of extended writing.
Stretch and challenge: Reading: Introducing Philosophy of Religion by Dilwyn Hunt (published by Nelson Thornes), The Puzzle of Ethics by Peter Vardy
Science
Topics / tasks: Breathing and respiration, The periodic table, Sound
Knowledge Breathing and respiration
• Aerobic respiration
• Anaerobic respiration
• Gas exchange
• Effects of exercise on respiration
The periodic table
Content and skills:
• Daltons Model of Atoms
• Mendeleev and the periodic table
• Physical trends
• Chemical trends Sound
• Making sound
• Detecting sounds
• How sounds move
• Comparing waves
Skills
• Calculating means
• Identifying anomalous results
• Understanding how scientific theories are developed
• Spotting and explaining trends
• Analysing data
• Using scientific models
• Drawing scientific diagrams
• Graph skills
Assessment: A combined short and long answer test covering all three topics at the end of the half term.
Stretch and challenge: By joining the virtual science club: email Mrs Gibb to join the online science team. I.Gibb@durhamjohnston.org.uk
Spanish
Topics / tasks:
How to introduce themselves and say where they are from. They can now say where their home is located and describe it using adjectives. They should be able to say how many floors it has and describe a room in the house such as their bedroom using prepositions. They will then move on to describing what there is in their local area and what they can do there.
Content and skills:
Describing how the area has changed, what there used to be using imperfect tense; using simple future phrases to mention future developments to the area. Using HACER and weather phrases to describe life in their region but this topic will be explored further at the end of the year 8 course in the topic of holidays.
Assessment: Listening / Reading & translation assessments will be used to assess progress and understanding of topic.
Stretch and challenge:
Using listening and reading materials on Claro interactive resources package as classwork and homework and using worksheets as homework to check grammar and strategies, translation, and written accuracy.
