ACADEMIC REVIEW OF THE YEAR
What happens when students are asked to devise their own curriculum ?
The logistics of much of what a student does in their school day is governed by their timetable . Looking at a timetable from the past is an interesting experience . Some of what a Sevenoaks student does today cannot be found in old timetables , like our Core Critical Thinking courses , Year 7 Society and Change , Enrichment Week or PSHE . However , there is also much that is familiar in what a student studied 50 years ago . The list of standard subjects – History , Mathematics , Chemistry , French and so on – has not changed that much .
When we find , in any walk of life , that things have not changed for a long time , we can draw two differing conclusions . Have people been too accepting of the status quo and wrongly reluctant to change ? Or has a Darwinian principle applied , and the situation has survived in its current state for good reasons ?
In our Year 10 Core Critical Thinking course there is a unit on education , which is followed up with a workshop during Enrichment Week in June when students are asked to devise their own Sixth Form curriculum from scratch . It is always interesting to see what ideas students come up with in this process . Sometimes , the curriculum plans they create are radically different from any current education system ; a few students this year devised a ‘ life skills ’ programme which included none of the academic subjects they were used to from their ( I ) GCSE courses . However , most students , when they think carefully about the different skills that should be engendered by an education for the benefit of both society and the individual , come up with a range of subjects that looks fairly similar to a standard secondary school curriculum : literacy , numeracy , problem solving , global understanding , analysis of literature and other texts , data analysis , creativity , critical thinking – these are all covered in a broad timetable including English , Humanities , Science , Mathematics , Arts and Languages .
Pleasingly , most tend to come up with something that looks very similar to the IB Diploma – ie , a curriculum which ensures a breadth of skills gained alongside the ability to develop specialised knowledge and understanding . And nobody ever devises a curriculum where a student can choose only three subjects from a list of dozens with no stipulations – not a surprise to those of us who have reservations about the narrowness of the British A-level system .
Our May 2024 IB cohort achieved outstanding results , with an average Diploma total roughly 10 points above the world average . Our mean score was 39.6 out of a maximum of 45 ( while our median score was 41 and our mode 42 – ask any Year 8 mathematician if they can remember the difference between these ). Our Year 11 cohort also distinguished themselves , with 86 per cent of all results being in the 7-9 range ( the old A */ A bracket ), and 90 students achieving 10 or more grades of 7-9 .
Here ’ s to another fantastic year of broad and varied learning at Sevenoaks , both when the timetable looks a bit like mine did many years ago , and when it doesn ’ t .
Chris Taylor , Deputy Head Academic
SEVENOAKS SCHOOL 2023-2024 7