Two Year I/ GCSE Course

GCSE Art and Design features a wide range of titles including Art, Craft and Design, Fine Art, Graphic Communication and Textile Design.  There is some flexibility to tailor the specific content offered.

The qualification is designed to inspire and bring out the best in students, whilst equipping them with the skills to continue the subject with confidence at A Level

The core content follows a coherent and logical story through biology, with ten required practical activities linked to core content to help develop understanding through hands-on experience.

Subjects to be studied include: Cell Biology; Organisation; Infection and Response; Bioenergetics; Homeostasis and Response; Inheritance, Variation and Evolution; Ecology; and Key Ideas.

Students will be given the opportunity to explore real business issues and how businesses work. They will consider the practical application of business concepts and will have the opportunity to explore theories and concepts in the most relevant way, through the context of events in the business and economic world.

Areas to be studied include: Business in the Real World; Influences on Business; Business Operations; Human Resources; Marketing; and Finance.

This course offers an exciting and enriching learning experience for students, providing them with a solid foundation in the fascinating world of chemistry. It equips students with essential scientific knowledge and critical thinking skills that are not only valuable within the field of chemistry but also applicable to various aspects of everyday life. By studying chemistry, students develop a deep understanding of the fundamental principles governing matter, its composition, and its interactions. They explore the intricacies of chemical reactions, delve into the mysteries of the periodic table, and investigate the impact of chemistry on the environment and society. Through hands-on experiments and practical activities, students gain invaluable laboratory skills, fostering their scientific curiosity and honing their ability to analyze and solve problems.

Computer Science will help you to operate confidently in today’s digital world, enabling you to apply computational thinking in context, across both written and practical applications. You will have plenty of opportunities to design, implement and test programs that provide solutions to problems. You will apply your skills to produce robust programs, and this will help you to progress to higher education where practical knowledge and experience will be required. You will learn to program in Python, a high-level, general-purpose programming language. You will develop the ability to:  

• apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, decomposition, logic, algorithms, and data representation  .
• analyse problems in computational terms through practical problem-solving experience. This will include designing, writing, and debugging programs.  
• think creatively, innovatively, analytically, logically, and critically.
• apply mathematical skills relevant to computer science.

English Language is a foundational GCSE on which A Level and university courses build. It teaches the power to communicate clearly with precision. It enables the student to think critically; to write creatively and to evaluate analytically. Students explore a challenging anthology of non-fiction which covers such topics as dyslexia, mental health and the importance of self-reliance. Ten poems and short stories are also studied: from Keats to Wilfred Owen; and Maupassant to Susan Hill; giving students the opportunity to experience a wide variety of differing ideas and perspectives. Creative writing and essay writing are also taught so that students can put what they have learned into practice and grow in their written expression.

In this course, students have the marvellous opportunity to study two tragedies, one modern by Arthur Miller, ‘A view from the Bridge’ which explores what pressure is needed to make an ordinary, well respected man forsake all he knows to be true; and one, more traditional, by Shakespeare, ‘Macbeth’ which explores the power of temptation to overthrow all our good intentions. Student responses to both plays are examined through coursework. The hugely influential and transformative novel, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is also studied for this GCSE and an anthology of poetry representing a wide variety of differing poets and poems. Students will learn to evaluate how language creates meaning and explore how major literary works have been both influenced by, and also been a means of influencing, the social, historical and political climate in which they were written.

Students will actively engage in the process of geographical enquiry to develop as effective and independent learners, and as critical and reflective thinkers with enquiring minds. Students will undertake, under supervision fieldwork. During the course they will develop knowledge and understanding of geographical concepts and appreciate the relevance of these concepts to our changing world. The topics studied are river environments, hazardous environments, economic activity and energy, urban environments and development and human welfare.

Students will acquire knowledge and understanding of interesting and important periods of history, reflecting upon significance, critically examining sources and developing an awareness of different interpretations. In other words, students will learn what has happened, explore explanations of why things happened, be able to discuss both the significance of events and individuals and be able to deploy evidence to support their own explanations and interpretations. The units studied are as follows:

• Germany: Development of Dictatorship, 1918–45.
• A Divided Union: Civil Rights in the USA, 1945–74.
• Russia and the Soviet Union, 1905–24.
• Changes in Medicine, c.1848 – c.1948.

In I/GCSE Maths, students will be provided with the essential numeracy skills to be applied not only in most of their future studies, but also in their daily life.

The scope of the subject is wide and it is present in most of the I/GCSE subjects across the board like Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Business, so its command is key to success in building a holistic understanding of all the subjects that will shape the overall knowledge of the student as an individual.

GCSE Physics covers a number of topics including forces, waves, radioactivity, electricity and magnetism.

You will learn how to apply maths to real-world problems and explore new areas such as particle physics, quantum mechanics, cosmology and medical physics. Perhaps more importantly, you will develop skills that can be transferred to just about any other area of work, from setting up a business to saving the planet. Even if you don’t go on to become a physicist, learning to think like one will help you get to the root of any problem and draw connections that aren’t obvious to others. Physics won’t give you all the answers, but it will teach you how to ask the right questions!