Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Subject Autumn Term
English Dystopia: Narrative writing Students will be writing dystopian fiction with analysis of key extracts from dystopian literature. Students will produce a narrative piece of writing using Dystopian conventions.
Mathematics Foundation Unit 1 Introduction to Number: Students will develop and extend their year 7and 8 learning of numbers to work fluently with factors, multiples, primes and negative numbers. Students will learn prime factor decomposition and use a Venn diagram to find the highest common factor and lowest common multiple of at least two integers. Unit 2 Introduction to algebra: Students will learn to collect like terms including terms with powers greater than 1. Students will also build on their knowledge of inverses and equations to rearrange simple equations.
Political Poetry: students will study an anthology of poetry covering major movements and appreciate how poetry can express heroism and cowardice. Students will consolidate their knowledge of the heroic couplet as well as learn and perform a poem.
Unit 3 Decimals and rounding: Students will learn to round to an appropriate degree of accuracy to estimate calculations and understand under and over estimation. Students will continue their work on the rules of BIDMAS including negatives and decimals.
Unit 4 Averages and range: Students will be able to find the mean, median, mode and range from a discrete frequency table and describe the positives and negatives of using the three averages.
Mathematics Higher Unit 1 Introduction to Number: Students will develop and extend their year 7and 8 learning of estimation and rounding to fluently describe under and over estimations and reason their choice. Students will extend their work on factors, multiples, primes to show prime factor decomposition and use a Venn diagram to find the highest common factor and lowest common multiple of at least two integers. Unit 2 Introduction to algebra: Students will learn to collect like terms including terms with powers greater than 1. Students will revisit expanding binomials extend this to fluently factorise a quadratic in the form x2+bx+c
Unit 3 Indices and standard form: Students will learn to apply rules of BIDMAS including multiplication and division where numbers have been written in standard form.
Unit 4 Solving equations: Students will learn to represent inequalities on a number line. Students will solve linear inequities in one variable and be able to write down whole number values that satisfy an inequality.
Unit 5 Averages and range: Students will be able to find the mean, median, mode and range from a discrete and grouped frequency tables describing the positives and negatives of using the three averages. Students will learn to solve reverse mean problems.
Biology
Cell Biology: Students will study the structure and function of cells and specialised cells, they will study microscopes and how the different types work. They will look at how cells divide and the uses of stem cells.
Chemistry
Students will complete Cell Biology by studying the movement of substances by diffusion, active transport and osmosis. They will then study Human Organisation; learning about the digestive system and enzymes involved in digestion.
Atomic structure and the periodic table: Students will study how atoms are the chemical building blocks of our world, and how chemists have evidence of their subatomic particles. Students will learn how there is a link between atomic structure and the periodic table. Students will learn the trends in reactivity in Group 1 and Group 7 elements. Students will then study what the differences are between elements, compounds and mixtures. Students will learn how to use practical skills to separate the substances in a range of mixtures using filtration, crystallisation, simple distillation and chromatography.
Physics Energy: Students will learn about the idea of energy stores and the way energy is transferred, they will then go onto use those ideas in practical situations and look at the way energy is used, electricity is generated and the importance of the use of renewable energy resources.
Physical Education
Geography
Rugby Football Netball Basketball Fitness Table Tennis
North America: Students will build on their diverse place knowledge by developing an understanding of the physical and human geographic elements of North America. During this topic they will explore the structure of the Earth, plate tectonics and migration across the continent.
Ice Worlds: Students will continue their studies of the seven continents by visiting the cold deserts of Antarctica. Alongside this, students will explore glaciated landscapes and the Isles of Svaldbard.
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
History Was WW1 a white man’s war?
Students will look at different people's experiences of the First World War. Students will look at the 4 million soldiers who fought for Britain who were not white and investigate whether the war really was a white man’s war.
Religious Studies
What does it mean to be human? Students will be exploring philosophical issues from a Christian and Humanist viewpoint. Content includes: Beliefs about the soul, Humanism, conscience and making moral decisions, creation and the distinction between humans and animals, animal experimentation and life after death.
Why was the 20th century an age of dictators?
Students will look at Frank Dikotters interpretations of different dictators during the twentieth century. Students will look at Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao and Franco and assess if Dikotter’s interpretation is correct.
The problem of Evil: Students will be continuing with the questions on the existence of God by asking the questions “Is God real?” “if so where is he?” and “Why does God allow evil and suffering?” a focus on prejudice, discrimination, Judaism, antisemitism and the Holocaust.
Spanish
Things I like: Students will begin the year revising the formation of opinions in Spanish and developing the range of opinions within their repertoire. They will review regular verbs and some common irregular verbs in the present tense to talk about their week. Students will discuss films and birthday celebrations using the near future and preterite tenses.
World of work and future aspirations: Students will learn to talk about different jobs in Spanish and what different jobs entail, as well as the qualities needed for different job types. Students will learn to give opinions about jobs, customers and employers. Students will say what jobs they would like to do in the future and why. There will be a greater focus of using the immediate future tense to talk about future plans including going to university and travelling. Furthermore, students will learn to talk about clothes, describing what they wear and what they would wear for different jobs, with an emphasis on demonstrative pronouns and adjectives.
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Subject Spring Term
English Shakespeare: Students will study the language and dramatic conventions of ‘Julius Caesar’, looking at key extracts and structuring their responses to themes and characters.
Mathematics Foundation Unit 5 Representing data: Students will learn to construct, use and interpret various representations of data including stem and leaf diagrams and frequency polygons. Unit 6 Fractions, decimals and percentages: Students will learn to calculate with fractions including mixed numbers and improper fractions. Students will build on their knowledge of converting between fractions, decimals and percentages to be able to fluently order a mixture of numbers written in any form.
Mathematics Higher Unit 6 Angles: Students will bring together prior learning on angles to work fluently to solve missing angle problems with regular and irregular polygons, including where angles are represented as fractions or algebraically. Unit 7 Representing data: Students will learn to construct, use and interpret various representations of data including stem and leaf diagrams and frequency polygons.
Biology
Human Organisation (heart): Students will study the blood and blood vessels, heart structure and function. They will consider the lifestyle factors which affect heart health and also learn about cancer.
Chemistry Chemical Analysis: Students will use chemical tests to identify the gases, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and chlorine. Students will learn the definition of a “chemically pure” substance and know how the melting and boiling point of a substance can help to identify it. Pupils will learn how to interpret chromatograms and work out the Rf values.
Physics Electricity: Students will study electricity looking at how circuits are designed and drawn and will develop an understanding of the differences between parallel and series circuits and the calculations which can be used in circuits.
Physical Education
Geography Ice Worlds (continued): Students will continue their studies of the seven continents by visiting the cold deserts of Antarctica. Alongside this, students will explore glaciated landscapes and the Isles of Svaldbard.
History How and why did the Holocaust happen? Students will examine how the lives of ordinary Jewish people were impacted by the Nazi regime. Students will examine what life was like prior to 1930 and look at the escalation of antisemitism across Europe.
Noughts and Crosses: Students will analyse the characters and themes in this class reader. They will develop their skills in responding and analysing extracts and linking it to the wider text and context. Students will complete a reading assessment based on an extract from the novella.
Unit 7 Equations: Student will learn the difference between an expression, equation, identity and formulae. Students will learn how to set up and solve equations from worded problems. Unit 8 Angles: Students will bring together prior learning on angles to work fluently to solve missing angle problems with regular and irregular polygons, including where angles are represented as fractions or algebraically.
Unit 8 Fractions and percentages: Students will learn to calculate with fractions including mixed numbers and improper fractions. Students will learn to choose and appropriate method to solve a mixture of fraction and percentage problems.
Unit 9 Ratio: Students will develop their understanding of ratio to be able to work fluently on a mixture of problems involving the use of ratio, fractions and percentages.
Human Organisation (lungs): Students will study lung structure and function and how the respiratory system works alongside the circulatory system. Then students learn about exercise, aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration and metabolism.
Structures and Bonding: Students will study theories of bonding, e.g ionic, covalent and metallic to explain how atoms are held together to make millions of different materials. Students will learn about simple covalent molecules, giant covalent macromolecules, and allotropes of carbon. They will link their structure and bonding to their properties and appreciate how this knowledge can be used to engineer new materials with desirable properties for the future.
Domestic Electricity: Students will continue to study electricity with the emphasis on the safe use of domestic equipment how mains electricity is generated and distributed by the national grid. As part of this energy transfers in appliances will also be studied.
Boxercise/Dance
Oceana: Students will finish their continental trail by experiencing Oceana.
Students will study and analyse a range of issues across Australasia with a focus on Oceanic issues, including what we can do to save the Great Barrier Reef and how to solve the great pacific garbage patch.
Was terrorism the biggest threat to humanity in the post war world?
Students will look at events after the Second World War, including the atomic bomb, Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11 and will judge whether terrorism was the biggest threat to humanity.
Badminton Fitness Table Tennis OAA Badminton
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Religious Studies Does religion encourage equality? Students will explore the question of equality through the Sikh religion. Content includes: Guru Nanak, Gurus, Khalsa, 5 K’s, Gurdwara, Langar and Sewar, Sikhism, equality and community.
Spanish Healthy living: Students will talk about staying in shape and leading a healthy lifestyle by maintaining a balanced diet and keeping active. Students will learn how to use direct object pronouns and reflexive verbs. Students will learn to talk about daily routine and how to describe illness and injuries, as well as give advice on how you should or should not behave in order to become fitter.
Medical Ethics: Students will explore ethical issues relating to medicine. Students will look at both the Christian and the Islamic viewpoint. Content includes: the sanctity of life, IVF, genetic engineering, abortion, euthanasia and organ donation.
Global Issues: Students will recap learning from Year 8 on town and use this as a steppingstone to including imperfect tense to explain how their town was in the past. Students will practise combining tenses. Also covered here will be recycling and moral issues.
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Subject Summer Term
English Noughts and Crosses continued: Students will analyse the characters and themes in this class reader. They will develop their skills in responding and analysing extracts and linking it to the wider text and context. Students will complete a reading assessment with a character based focus. Non-fiction writing: ActivismStudents will be exploring the art of rhetoric through famous speeches that relate to past and present world issues. Students will focus on their letter and article writing skills.
Mathematics Foundation Unit 9 Ratio and proportion: Students will develop their understanding of ratio to be able to work fluently on a mixture of problems involving the use of ratio, fractions and percentages. Students will explore proportion including how it links to scale factors and comparing best value.
Unit 10 Real life and linear graphs: Students will learn how to plot and understand coordinates using these to draw an interpret real life graphs.
Mathematics Higher Unit 10 Pythagoras and Trigonometry: Students will learn how to use and apply Pythagoras and trigonometry in right angled triangles.
Unit 11 Simultaneous Equations: Students will learn to solve and set up simultaneous equations. Unit 12 Proportion: Students will learn to identify proportion from a table of values and calculate its scale factor (k).
Continuing Non-fiction writing: Activism - Students will be exploring the art of rhetoric through famous speeches that relate to past and present world issues. Students will focus on their letter and article writing skills.
Biology
Infection and Response: Students will study different pathogens and how they can harm the body and how the body can defend itself.
Chemistry
Structures and Bonding (continued): Students will learn about simple covalent molecules, giant covalent macromolecules, and allotropes of carbon. They will link their structure and bonding to their properties and appreciate how this knowledge can be used to engineer new materials with desirable properties for the future.
Physics
Atomic Structure: Students will study the history of how the current model of the atom has developed will be studied with the emphasis on how the models developed considering new discoveries.
Physical Education
History
Unit 11 Probability: Students will learn how to use and interpret experimental and theoretical probability. Students will learn how to draw and use Venn diagrams. Unit 12 Perimeter and area: Students will learn to convert between units of measure working fluently through area and perimeter questions that require conversion of units.
Unit 13 Real life and linear graphs: Students will learn how to plot and understand coordinates using these to draw an interpret real life graphs. Students will learn how to draw and calculate the equation for linear graphs. Unit 14 Probability: Students will learn how to use and interpret experimental and theoretical probability.
Infection and response (continued): Students will look at different drugs that are used in medicine including antibiotics and how drug trials are performed. Students will also study some plant diseases.
Quantitative Chemistry (FT): Students will learn what is meant by the relative atomic mass and know how to calculate it. Students will learn how to calculate the relative formula mass of a compound. Pupils will look at the practicality of conservation of mass and subsequently balancing simple equations.
Atomic Structure: After learning about the structure of the atom and isotopes the students will the focus on the topic of radioactivity, why atoms decay how we measure this, uses of radioisotopes in medicine and industry. This will lead into learning about the dangers of radioactivity and precautions that should be taken for safe use of radioactive materials.
Have we run out of time? An in depth study of global warming/climate change and other global crises. Have we used the planet to the limit and exploited its resources?
Students will explore where we’ve gone wrong and what can be done to solve these global issues.
How accepting was post war British society? Students will look at what life was like for people in post war Britain. They will focus on lgbt rights, Windrush generation and women's rights.
Is America really the land of the free?
Students will look at civil rights in America, relating to African Americans but also looking at the rights of women (including Roe vs Wade).
Boxercise/Dance Handball Athletics Danish Longball Cricket Rounders Geography
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Religious Studies Peace and Conflict: Students will study ideas on peace and war from the Islamic view point. Content includes: Does religion create war? Peace, Pacifism, Just War & Holy War, Terrorism and the use of WMD.
Spanish Global Issues: Students will focus on using a new past tense (imperfect) to describe how their town or city used to be and be able to compare it to the present day.
Students will then consolidate their learning on using multiple tenses together.
Finally, students will be introduced to various cultural aspects of Spain and Latin America, appreciating different traditions in various Spanish speaking countries.
What is faith? Students will explore questions of faith from two religious viewpoints. Content includes: religious experiences, Jonah, MLK, monastic life in the modern world, Mother Theresa, Hajj and Malcolm X.
An adventure in Madrid: Students will use discussion of a holiday to consolidate learning on using various tenses together, including some irregular verbs and some more complex constructions. Students will gain confidence knowing how to use the different Spanish words for you through role plays of buying souvenirs on holiday. Students will describe a specific day of their holiday, practising skills learned of mixing tenses and using a range of time markers, specifically time phrases to narrate events.
Curriculum Plan
Creative Subjects Rotations 1&2
Art Urban Landscape: In this unit, students will begin by investigating the work of Hundertwasser. Students will produce designs of their own weird and wonderful maps of where they live and their local area. Combining the use of colour, shapes, patterns and textures from the work of Hundertwasser and their own ideas. They will produce 2D final pieces presenting their response to the initial aspect of the project. Students will then switch focus onto the Artist Jim Butler, creating an image based on a local landmark to which they will apply painting techniques and processes including colour selection blocking in areas and dripping paint over the surface of the image.
Computing Be an App Inventor: Students will develop an app using a block based programming system. They will explore careers in this sector. Be a hardware engineer: Students will look at peripherals and their functions and how they co ordinate with the CPU. They will look at different categories of software and their varying features. They will look at different practical scenarios and make informed decisions about what hardware and software is best for each. Be a 3D printer: Students will further develop their understanding of 3D printers and their use in industry by completing a project for BAE systems, building on the work completed in year 8.
Drama Exploration of a Script (ASBO): Students will develop their understanding of script work. They will explore the script practically and from a design point of view looking at staging, costume and set. Students will explore the text as a director and performer to gain a full understanding of the plot, context and themes. They will create costume, set and lighting designs based own their own ideas from what they have learnt about the play ASBO.
Food & Design Technology Factors Affecting Food Choice:
Students will explore the differing factors that affect food choice. Students will look into the cost of living and how this impacts the choices made in relation to what and where food is most appropriately sourced from. They will investigate the ethical, religious and cultural beliefs and traditions along with the environmental factors (including exploration of C02 emissions and climate change). Students will conduct a number of practical tasks which include a variety of high level skills.
Music Exploring Blues: Students will learn about the history of Blues music, looking at work songs from the slave trade and American gospel music. Students will analyse the characteristics of Blues, looking at techniques such as 7th chords, call and response and improvisation. Students will explore how the Blues led to the creation of many other genres and how traces of it can still be found in today’s pop music.
Portraiture: Investigating the work of several artists including, Teesha Moore, Patrick Bremer, Jesse Treece and Maria Rivens. Initially students will focus on the basics of face mapping using the grid technique and drawing the features of the face. They will build skills relating to tonal shading, representing 3 dimensional form and contoured shading and mark making. Students will experiment with different materials and processes including collage whilst producing a final response to the project in the form of a final 2D mixed media outcome.
Be a sound engineer: Students will gain an understanding of how images and sound are stored as binary. They will use software to manipulate images and see the impact on file size. They will also and develop programming skills to program music using Sonic Pi. Be a cyber security analyst: Students will produce a Jamboard to increase understanding of some of the cyber security threats that exist and how to protect from these. Be a programmer: Students will develop further understanding of programming, building on skills from year 8 and adding more advanced skills such as iteration using counter controlled and condition controlled loops. They will decompose problems and program solutions independently.
Storytelling project: Students will develop knowledge of storytelling and research a variety of popular stories. Students will choose a popular fairy tale/story of choice that they will develop into a performance. They will explore performance skills and how they can bring the story to life. Students will work collaboratively incorporating performance and production elements into their stories.
Exploring Passive Amplification:
Students will create a passive amplifier for their mobile phone. They will explore the work of others, analyse and investigate existing products in relation to the design brief and develop technical drawing skills that are used when designing and manufacturing products. Students will explore modelling as a technique used for prototyping before commencing production of their final design idea.
Exploring Bandmanship: Students will explore what it means to be a musician as a part of a larger ensemble. Looking into the history of the archetypical 4 piece band, students will cover genres such as blues, rock’n’roll and pop music, enhancing their musical ability and learning different techniques within the framework of a rock band. Through practical and theory lessons, students will learn the different roles within a group and the importance of musicianship.
Year 9
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
