Learning Mentors
Jade – Hello, my name is Miss McGillick and I’m one the new learning mentors. I know you may be worried about your child starting secondary school but we have a wonderful team of learning mentors who are there to help them through their journey at the Radclyffe school. As learning mentors, we support students who are feeling anxious about all the changes that occur when transitioning from primary school to secondary school.
Bev – Hello, My name is Miss Campbell I am one of the new Learning Mentors at The Radclyffe School. As a team we are always happy to welcome students into the Learning Mentor room.
English
Haleema – Hello, and welcome to the English Faculty at The Radclyffe School. My name is Miss Khaliq, I am the head of English and it is a privilege to speak to you about our outstanding English Faculty. I will start by talking about the team. We are a large, dedicated and passionate team who are committed to instilling a love of English in all our students. We believe that every child is deserving of the highest quality of education and all of our students should leave school equipped with an essential life skill that will open doors for them, create opportunities for them and ensure that they are able to reach their potential.
To enable all our students to achieve, we know that they have to be exposed to a world class curriculum that breaks down all barriers. This is why we immerse our students in a curriculum that explores key, seminal texts that builds cultural capital and enables students to explore cultures and contexts that are different to their own.
When students arrive in year 7, they begin their journey into the story of English, studying Myths and Legends beginning with Homer’s The Iliad. Here students also begin the to build the knowledge and skills required to talk and write like an academic scholar. They continue this journey by reading and appreciating stories from The Odyssey where students are encouraged to explore different narrative structures, develop higher level vocabulary and emulate the styles of writing modelled to them in quality stories that they are studying. With any challenging curriculum, we understand that high levels of support are required, something that the English team are committed to providing. We also know that for future success, students need to develop independence and so we ensure that the scaffolding that we put in place is gradually removed to build confidence and independence.
It is important to us that we continue to build upon the progress and the great achievements that our children have already made at primary school and this obviously involves ensuring that all students have access to a system that allows them to develop the crucial skill of reading as well as develop a love of reading. For this reason, all students at KS3 are enrolled in the Accelerated Reader programme and are given Library lessons once a fortnight. We truly believe in the transformative power of reading which is why we dedicate time an effort to ensure that all students are fluent, capable readers, but also students who love reading and are inspired to read for pleasure.
At Key Stage 4, students continue to build upon the skills and knowledge from Key Stage 3 ensuring that the challenge that is deliberately built into the curriculum continues in this new phase of their school journey.
The content of the curriculum develops learners in to confident, young people who are empowered to communicate through all mediums that are necessary to succeed not only in the English Language GCSE but in life after school.
The two years of study will culminate in students taking two external exams where they will demonstrate their ability to understand, analyse, evaluate and compare unseen texts from different eras. They will have the opportunity to use the skills and knowledge that they have developed to create imaginative and purposeful writing that responds to their audience.
Whilst studying for the English Literature GCSE, students will examine a diverse range of texts from the Literary Canon. Their understanding of the ‘Story of English’ that has been embedded at KS3 will allow them to greater appreciate and understand the challenging texts that they will study.
Our English Literature curriculum allows our students to journey deeper into the language of Shakespeare and other literary giants. They will be encouraged to not only offer their own perspectives but to consider alternative viewpoints. Students will develop their skills of inference and deduction; they will consider the writer’s intentions; the contextual factors that have influenced the text and will begin to bring all these elements together in the form of a cohesive, thoughtful and exploratory essay.
Finally, It goes without saying that learning does not stop in the classroom. We provide plenty of opportunities for students to develop their skills and love of the subject through extra curricular activities such as Up for Debate, University style lectures, peer- peer mentoring and the opportunity to visit the theatre, museums and other institutions that build cultural capital.
The English team are very excited to meet you on Open Evening and are looking forward to get to know you in September.
Humanities
Hello I’m Miss Connolly and I’m the head of Humanities at the Radclyffe High School.
A huge welcome to the Humanities faculty, this is where you will study Geography, History and Religious studies.
You’ll be taught by our fantastic subject specialists who are passionate about what they do.
Humanities is a unique group of subjects, where you will learn about how the world works, how people live together, a variety of religions and cultures and about how our past can shape our future.
For more information about what you’ll be learning about in each subject, please see the links below the video for each department.
We have 8 rooms here, with 2 specialist computer rooms which are used for research lessons, report writing and development of Geographical Information System skills.
We encourage independent, hard workers in our subject and offer a number of rewards for our Humanities Stars from postcards home, badges, certificates and an invite to a special rewards lunch at the end of the year. We also offer a number of enrichment opportunities such as field trips and much more, for more details, please see the slide in the information pack.
We look forward to welcoming you to our subjects and we hope you will use what you have learnt to change the world.
Year 7 Manager
Good Evening. My name is Mrs Longley. I’d just like to introduce myself as the Year Manager for your child should you choose to send them to The Radclyffe School in September 2022.
Here at The Radclyffe School we have very high expectations of our students. Expectations about learning, behaviour and uniform. Attitude to learning for our students is very important. The more they value their studies and pay attention in class, the better they will do long term.
We like our students to dress correctly. We are very proud of our uniform and we hope the students are too. Attendance is also very important. We aim for 97% attendance at least. It goes without saying that the more time they spend in lessons, the better they will do in their exams.
At The Radclyffe School we have Personal Learning Guides known as PLGs. Every child will be assigned a group which will meet every morning for an enrichment session or an assembly all and then they will be guided throughout the year with personal one-to-one meetings with that dedicated member of staff.
Staff at The Radclyffe School encourage our students to get involved as much as possible in the day-to-day running of the school. We call this Student Voice. There are lots of other things they can get involved in that are extra-curricular including numerous sporting activities, the annual school musical, Student Council, Student Leadership Team, British Values and Charity Team, along with lots, lots more.
At The Radclyffe School, behaviour is recorded and rewarded. During a half term, your child will be rewarded for the positive logs that they accumulate. For every 50, 100, 200 and 300 positive logs, they will achieve a badge and a postcard home. They will also be entered into a prize draw, where they can win gift vouchers at the end of every half term.
I hope you choose The Radclyffe School for your child, and if you do I’ll look forward to meeting you and working with you in September next year.
