Med and Sargasso are our two Year 7 classes. Mrs Settle is the Form Teacher for Med and Mr Lord for Sargasso. Both classes are working on the same lesson material and meet together for sport and several other lessons. Science, Spanish and some Humanities lessons are currently taught to all boys in one class and all girls in the other, so far with very good results indeed!

English

Welcome back, and a Happy New Year to you all.  This term we shall be reading ‘Fire, Bed and Bone’ by Henrietta Branford, an exciting tale which ties in neatly with our work in History, as it is set at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt!  We continue to work on our personal reading files, and to improve our spelling, comprehension and essay-writing skills.  We welcome your help in encouraging your child to read widely, to use a dictionary and a thesaurus regularly and to learn spellings and the occasional poem!  Later in the term we shall read a play and there will be plenty of opportunity to debate and give speeches.  We plan a busy and enjoyable term’s work.

Mathematics

We are studying the following this term: Logic, Sets and Venn Diagrams, Perimeter and Area

Fractions and Data - collection and presentation

French
We will be talking about ourselves: brothers & sisters, pets, what we look like, what our interests are etc. Moving on, we will be talking about school: timetable & time, day at school, subjects & teachers, clothes at school.

Grammar covered:
Expressing simple opinions; telling the time; possessive adjectives; ‘er’ verbs & ‘faire’ (to do); indefinite & definite articles

Science

Biology: Cells and Organs cell structure(animal and plant), specialized cells, animal and plant organs and the organ systems

Chemistry : Mixtures and separating, incl practical separating techniques , also what a mixture and chromatography

Physics: the Earth and Space including a special space day at school across KS3 and a visit to the National Space centre

Religious Studies

This term we will looking at the six world religions. Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Judaism and Hindus. The pupils will focus on the history of the religions along with rituals and festivals.

Spanish

We will study description of the self, eyes and hair, size and colouring - while being kind to Señor Lord. Grammatically we will look at adjectival agreement, radical changing verbs (to think and to prefer) and the verb to arrive.

There will be two end of unit tests.

Later we will move on to school based matters: subjects – liking, disliking etc. including the vital me encanta el español. We will learn to give further opinions, handle time (surely this is physics?) and study meals and food. Finally we will describe our school and look at how we get here. ¡Olé!

German

There will be a special focus on grammar in this class. We will talk about personal pronouns and the conjugation of regular and irregular verbs as well as about the two auxiliary verbs “haben” and “sein” . The students will learn how to express themselves in letters and how to evaluate school subjects. There will be regular vocabulary tests. The vocabulary of each chapter will be given to the children in the lessons. Exercise books will be collected in every Tuesday and there will be homework every Wednesday.

Latin

Our first topic will be slaves, freed men and manumission. We will improve our knowledge of perfect and imperfect tenses. We will then move on to ghosts, werewolves and Roman beliefs about life after death. The final part of the term will feature gladiators, accusative plurals and superlatives.

There will be three quizzes and vocabulary tests.

Music

For the first half of term we will study the music of Indonesia and Java, specifically through the use of gamelan. We will listen to recordings of gamelan music, attend a gamelan workshop, and learn to play and compose for the instruments involved. In the second half of term we will begin preparation for performing a large-scale musical during the summer term. We will also think about opportunities for learning orchestral instruments, with a particular focus on tuned percussion and on brass. To support this we will play the marimba we have on loan, and attend a visiting brass performance.

Geography

Pupils will complete their Key geographical skills unit looking at contours and how we show relief on a map. Pupils will also have a key skills assessment to mark the end of this introductory unit.

The theme for the rest of the term will be water. This will involve pupils looking at the water cycle and what happens to water as it moves on the earth. Pupils will study the course of a river from source to mouth looking at the processes of erosion, transportation of material and deposition. Key features such as waterfalls, meanders, flood plains and deltas will be studied looking at case studies from around the world. There will also be the opportunity for some local fieldwork, looking at the river Cam.

History

Continuing our focus on the Medieval period 1066-1485, we are looking at Medieval Life, key historical figures of the period, the nature of warfare, The Crusades and The Black Death and its global impact.

We will start this term looking at the growth of towns and how towns developed. We will look at the development of European trade and how this trade facilitated the spread of the Black Death. We will study the effects of the Plague in Italy and trace its spread over Europe plotting its arrival and its impact in England. We will examine the social and economic impact this plague had on Europe, where an estimated third of the total population was wiped out.

Art

Year 7 classes will be exploring the work of milliners Stephen Jones and Philip Treacy, hopefully meeting a milliner, then creating their own designs for a hat. They will then explore materials and create their design in 3D.

Film-making

We are still working on group films which the class will now begin to edit. Our aim is for the whole class to have each made their own short film. Thereafter, the class will focus on two class drama film projects that will involve them as actors or crew.

PSHE

The focus this term is on world and local politics and world finances.