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Curriculum

The Gateway (Year 8)

   Welcome To The Year 8 College, The Gateway!

Welcome to The Gateway – the home of Year 8! The Year 8 journey builds upon and develops the skills and learning established within The Bridge, whilst simultaneously preparing students for Year 9 where they will focus on becoming GCSE ready. To do this, we deliver a world class curriculum, supported by outstanding interventions and a wide ranging enrichment programme.

The Gateway is the link between Year 7 and Year 9: whilst in Year 7, students are primarily taught within The Bridge classrooms to allow them a smooth transition into secondary school life; in Year 9 students move around the school for each lesson within the different subject areas. Year 8 is a middle ground between the two where students have some of their lessons within the dedicated Gateway classrooms and other lessons in subject areas around the school. The Gateway continues to provide the support and security offered from within The Bridge as we move students towards becoming more resilient and responsible in preparation for Year 9.

Throughout Year 8, students will cover a range of topics within the subjects that they study. Year 8 students receive four lessons of English and maths, three lessons of science and two lessons of geography, history, R.E., Spanish and P.E. each week. As well as this, students follow a six week project based curriculum allowing students to study and experience lessons in music, art, ICT, STEM and technology. To learn more about the topics covered within each subject, please use the ‘Curriculum’ link to read more.

In Year 8, as with other year groups, students start the day with a 25 minute Tutor Period. During these 25 minutes, tutors check to ensure that each student is ready for their day and that they have the appropriate ‘Gateway Five’, as well as deliver the Tutor Curriculum. The Tutor Curriculum focuses on supporting our students within the following three strands: Living in the Wider World, Keeping Safe and Healthy, Student Leadership. As part of the Tutor Curriculum, students attend online seminars with a variety of different professionals from a range of careers, such as human resources, nursing, finance and management. Students also learn about the world around them, how to keep themselves safe within it and the importance of community.


Interventions

Whilst the vast majority of academic interventions happen within the classroom with the class teacher, we recognise that a number of students will require that extra bit of support outside of the classroom. To help deliver this, we have established an outstanding intervention programme for students to raise their academic progress to be in line with age related expectations.  These interventions are taught by our specialist Year 8 Teaching Assistants, as well as our Year 8 Progress Leader and our Learning Mentor. College academic interventions range from handwriting

practise, to reading inference, to multiplication, to developing memory. Many of these interventions happen within our dedicated Year 8 intervention classroom.

Enrichment

There are a range of fantastic enrichment opportunities within Year 8 for students to participate in. Some of the enrichment on offer includes:

  • Winter sports: football, rugby
  • Summer sports: rounders, athletics, cricket
  • Music clubs: Band and Orchestra
  • Design and Enterprise Club
  • STEM [science, technology, engineering, maths] club

We also have our Year 8 College Council that is made up of 12 students voted for by their peers. The College Council meet weekly to discuss ways in which their experience as students could be improved. Two members of the College Council are also members of the Whole School Council who work with our Head Students from Post 16 and feedback directly to our school Leadership Team, which includes the Head Teacher, the Deputy Headteacher and the Assistant Headteachers. The role of the College Council is incredibly important as it ensures that student voice is part of the conversation in how we as a school can continue to drive our school forward.

The Gateway

College Director: Miss V Roberts

Teaching and Learning Coordinator: Mrs Murray

Pastoral Leader: Ms Birdee

Learning Mentor: Mrs Downs

Literacy and Numeracy Coordinator: Mrs Murray

Teaching Assistants: Ms Dzula, Mrs Chauhan and Mrs Begum