Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Subject Autumn Term
English How do secrets breed power and rebellion?
Building on their knowledge from 8, students will develop their ability to analyse the language in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in greater depth and apply their knowledge of historical context to a text. They will also draw parallels to other texts enhancing their ability to compare.
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.
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.
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.
How do secrets breed power and rebellion?
Continuing from Autumn 1; Through the study of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Students will revise dramatic conventions, analyse structural choices and explore the themes of conflict and oppression due to clandestine events.
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.
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.
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.
Cell Biology continued: Students will complete Cell Biology by studying the movement of substances by diffusion, active transport and osmosis.
Chemistry 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.
Computer Science 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.
Physical Education Football Netball Basketball Cross Country Basketball Netball Football
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Geography 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.
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 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.
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.
Why was the 20th century an age of dictators? Students will look at Frank Dikotter’s 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 En forma: Students will discuss staying in shape and leading a healthy lifestyle by maintaining a balanced diet and keeping active. Students will revisit key grammatical concepts and vocabulary from year 7 including opinions, the present tense and food vocabulary. They will also 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 what you should or should not do to become fitter.
Design Technology Design and Make Project – Electronics – Night Light: Students will follow the iterative design process to design and make a night light. Students will explore the process of soldering and PCB production, electronic components (including LDR, LED, Resistors and Transistors), fault finding, prototyping along with developing their evaluative skills. Students will produce their final artefact in response to a given brief and evaluate their performance against a given set of criteria.
Design and Make Project – Graphics – Festival Merchandise: Students will follow the iterative design process to design and make a range of items of festival merchandise. Students will explore the using online graphics design software (PhotoPea) to create a poster and associated ticket having used skills such as filters, applying gradients, vectorising images and manipulating images associated to their chosen festival. Students will produce their final artefact in response to a given brief and evaluate their performance against a given set of criteria.
Art 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.
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.
Music Exploring The 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.
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Subject Spring Term
English How can we use the power of language to change our world for the better? 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.
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, learning about coronary heart disease.
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.
How can we use the power of language to change our world for the better? 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.
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.
Physics Molecules and Matter: Students will study kinetic theory and change of state, pressure in liquids and gases, calculating pressure and investigating the effect of heat. They will also study density, levers and Speed/distance/time graphs including acceleration.
Computer Science Be a sound engineer: Students will gain an understanding of how images and sound are stored as binary. They will use software to manipulate
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.
Be a programmer: Students will develop further understanding of programming, building on skills from year 8 and adding more advanced
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
images and see the impact on file size. They will also and develop programming skills to program music using Sonic Pi.
skills such as iteration using counter controlled and condition-controlled loops. They will decompose problems and program solutions independently.
Physical Education Rugby Badminton Fitness Fitness Badminton Rugby 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 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.
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.
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.
What do stories of Berlin reveal to us about the Cold War? Students will look at stories of individuals who lived in Berlin at the time of the Berlin Wall.
Why do people believe in God? Students will explore theism, atheism and agnosticism. Students will look at arguments for and against the existence of God and relate it to key case studies.
Spanish ¿ Qué podríamos hacer? As part of this unit, Students will discuss a wide range of topics affecting their lives such as jobs, global issues and social issues. 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 their plans including going to university and travelling. Furthermore, they will discuss issues such as fair trade and how they can be global citizens. 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.
Design and Technology Design and Make Project – Electronics – Night Light (continued):
Students will follow the iterative design process to design and make a night light. Students will explore the process of soldering and PCB production, electronic components (including LDR, LED, Resistors and Transistors), fault finding, prototyping along with developing their evaluative skills. Students will produce their final artefact in response to a given brief and evaluate their performance against a given set of criteria.
Design and Make Project – Graphics – Festival Merchandise (continued):
Students will follow the iterative design process to design and make a range of items of festival merchandise. Students will explore the using online graphics design software (PhotoPea) to create a poster and associated ticket having used skills such as filters, applying gradients, vectorising images and manipulating images associated to their chosen festival. Students will produce their final artefact in response to a given brief and evaluate their performance against a given set of criteria.
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.
Design and Make Project – Textiles – Chromebook Cases:
Students will follow the iterative design process to design and make a Textiles Chromebook Case. Students will explore basic textiles skills and techniques including hand stitching and embroidery, machine sewing, applique, tie dye and fabric manipulation. Students will produce their final artefact in response to a given brief and evaluate their performance against a given set of criteria.
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Art Portraiture Cont... 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.
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.
Drama Exploration of a Script (ASBO) (cont.): 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.
Music Exploring Music from Other Cultures (India): Students will explore musical characteristics of Indian music. Focusing on instrumentation and performance technique, students will learn composing techniques such as droning, microtones and pitch bending.
Verbatim Theatre – Missing dan Nolan; Students will explore the play by Mark Wheeller ‘Missing Dan Nolan’. Students will understand the context and characters of the play and explore a variety of dramatic techniques that will lead to them creating a verbatim piece of theatre at the end of the topic. Their piece is created by students researching a variety of topics and developing ideas for a performance.
Exploring Rock and Roll: Students will explore the birth of Rock and Roll music in the 1950’s. Finding out how Rock and Roll derived from Blues music, students will learn the different characteristics of the genre, looking at some of its pioneers.
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
Subject Summer Term
English 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. How does growing up influence your perception of the world around you? 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.
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).
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 Waves: Students will study the language and terms used to describe transverse and longitudinal waves with examples of each and how the properties can be described and explained using the correct vocabulary.
Computer Science 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. They explore the career opportunities in this area.
How does growing up influence your perception of the world around you?
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.
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 : 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.
Magnetism and Electromagnetism: Students will look at the use of magnets, how magnetics fields behave and their similarities to electric fields. Students will the look at the interaction between these fields to produce electromagnets.
Modern Technologies: Students will consider modern and changing technology and their impact. They will further develop their understanding of 3D printers and their use in industry by completing an independent,
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
building on the work completed in year 8.
Physical Education Cricket Dance Athletics Rounders Dance Athletics Rounders Cricket
Geography
Earth’s Heroes: An in-depth study of the inspiring stories surrounding geography. Students will study the book Earths Heroes by Lily Dyu and apply their knowledge of geography from previous years to understand how we can have a positive impact on the planet.
History How accepting was post war Western society? Students will look at what life was like for people in post war Britain and America. They will focus on lgbt rights, Windrush generation and women's rights such as Roe VS Wade in America.
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 Mi vida como adoloscente: Students will consolidate their KS3 learning journey in Spanish by revisiting key concepts such as social media, expressing their preferences, hobbies and past times, their relationships and who inspires them. They will have the opportunity to consolidate their understanding of key grammatical concepts, vocabulary and phonics as well as consider cultural phenomena within the Spanish speaking world.
Why do people still fight over Jerusalem today? Students will student the creation of Israel and the Arab Israeli conflict.
What is faith? Students will explore questions of faith from two religious viewpoints. Content includes: MLK, Malcolm X and Malcolm X
Travel and tourism project: Students will have the opportunity to plan a holiday to a Spanish speaking country and fulfil certain criteria to show their intercultural awareness, demonstrate their Spanish language skills and make cross-curricular links with Computing and Food.
Design Technology Factors Affecting Food Choice (cont.): 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. Design and Make Project – Textiles – Chromebook Cases (continued): Students will follow the iterative design process to design and make a Textiles Chromebook Case. Students will explore basic textiles skills and techniques including hand stitching and embroidery, machine sewing, applique, tie dye and fabric manipulation. Students will produce their final artefact in response to a given brief and evaluate their performance against a given set of criteria.
Art Urban Landscape Continued: 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.
Drama Verbatim Theatre – Missing dan Nolan (cont.): Students will explore the play by Mark Wheeller ‘Missing Dan Nolan’ Students will understand the context and characters of the play and explore a variety of dramatic techniques that will lead to them creating a verbatim piece of theatre at the end of the topic. Their piece is created by students researching a variety of topics and developing ideas for a performance.
Music Exploring The 1960’s: Students will explore the culture surrounding the music scene of the 1960’s. Looking at events such as Beatlemania, The British Invasion, The Summer of Love and the hippie movement, students will learn several artists and hit songs from the decade and perform a piece
Exploring Alternative Genres: Students will continue looking at music from more recent decades, looking at movements such as Punk, Grunge, Britpop and Grime music. Students will identify the key artists from these alternative genres, as well as learn about the key musical characteristics of
Year 9 Curriculum Plan
as part of a band.
each of them. By the end of year 9, students will have an understanding of the progression of contemporary music.
