September 2008

It is clear that with the huge impact of economic and social change upon our young learners the education we offer must also change.  New technologies, the growth of the consumer society, rising prosperity, family breakdown, changing attitudes to personal relationships and social exclusion all contribute to our present day problems.  There is a wide spread agreement for a strategy capable of transforming what young people learn and how they learn.  The education offered to our pupils must equip and prepare them to meet the demands and the challenges that will face them in their adult life; in managing their lives and their work.

In September 2007 we piloted a competency based approach to learning with a group of 30 pupils (7G).  This pilot was based upon the RSA's work on the new curriculum, which started with a project "Opening Minds".  Opening Minds is a report, a project and a philosophy, it identified (1999) that there was a mismatch between what the National Curriculum tries to do and what education for the new century should be trying to do.

Commencing in September 2008 7G will continue on Opening Minds as 8G and the new cohort of year 7 pupils in upper band will take part in Opening Minds lessons.

Opening Minds is a competency based framework that aims to meet pupils' individual needs in their personal, social and employment worlds.

The five competencies are:

• Citizenship
• Learning
• Managing Information
• Managing People
• Managing Situations

Each category of competencies contains a number of individual competencies which are expressed in terms of what a pupil could achieve having progressed through the curriculum.

Competencies are taught through subject content, through a variety of teaching and learning styles.  Subject-discrete content and skills continue to develop but the competence curriculum opens up opportunities for making all kinds of connections between subjects.

There are three themes followed in both year 7 K, N and G and year 8G

1. My Life
2. Sharing the Planet
3. Health and Life Skills

The units within each of them cover various topics and have a different focus.  They also vary in time to complete from 3 to 7 weeks.  Terms 1 and 2 have 4 units to complete (approximately 3 weeks each).  Terms 3, 4, 5 and 6 have one unit to complete (approximately 5 to 7 weeks each).