knowledge Valley International School

Key Stage -3 Curriculum

This program provides a broad and balanced education for your learners, helping them to

thrive throughout their schooling, work, and life. With ten subjects to choose from, including

English, mathematics, and science, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to develop creativity,

expression, and wellbeing in a variety of ways.

You can shape the curriculum around how you want your students to learn. The curriculum is

flexible, so you can offer any combination of the subjects available and adapt the content to

suit your context, culture, and ethos. Many of our schools offer Cambridge Lower Secondary

alongside their national curriculum, or as part of a bilingual program.

 

English 

English as a Second Language curriculum empowers even the youngest learners to

communicate confidently and effectively. It helps them to develop the skills needed to

respond to a range of information, media and texts. The program promotes active learning,

develops thinking skills and encourages intellectual engagement.

This subject is for learners who speak a language other than English at home – there is no

expectation that they will have prior experience of English before starting this course. We

have based the curriculum on the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages (CEFR), used across the world to map learners’ progress in English.

This curriculum develops learners’ curiosity about other languages and cultures, and how

these shape our perceptions of the world. They will see themselves as successful language

learners, be able to communicate effectively and become confident in and enjoy reading a

range of texts as their skills develop.

This framework supports an integrated approach to planning and teaching to develop

effective communication skills in English. The five strands, and their respective learning

objectives, work together to support the development of knowledge, skills and

understanding in:

  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Use of English
  • Listening
  • Speaking.

 

Math

Math helps us to think analytically and have better reasoning abilities. 

Learners develop a holistic understanding of the subject, focusing on principles, patterns,

systems, functions and relationships. They will become mathematically competent and

fluent in computation, which they can apply to everyday situations.

‘Thinking and working mathematically’, a unique feature of our curriculum, encourages

learners to talk with others, challenge ideas and to provide evidence that validates

conjectures and solutions. When learners are thinking and working mathematically, they

actively seek to make sense of ideas and build connections between different facts,

procedures, and concepts. This supports higher order thinking that helps them to view the

world in a mathematical way.

We have divided this subject into three main areas called ‘strands’, which run through every

lower secondary mathematics stage. Learners will develop skills in:

  • Number
  • Algebra, Geometry and Measure
  • Statistics and Probability.

The strands work together to help students recognize connections of mathematical concepts

as they engage in creative mathematical thinking to generate and improve numerical fluency.

Science

science curriculum helps learners develop a life-long curiosity about the natural world and enables

them to seek scientific explanations to the phenomena around them.

Students will think scientifically and develop practical skills alongside knowledge and

understanding, which is vital for explaining the world around us. Improving learners’

awareness of science in the world around them develops their sense that ‘science is for me’,

helping to connect themselves to the subject.

This approach provides them with the knowledge and skills they require to excel at science in

later stages of education and to make informed choices, including considering sustainability

issues and meeting the challenges facing our environment.

This curriculum covers six main areas called ‘strands’ that work together so that you can

teach science holistically:

  • Biology – living things and how they interact.
  • Chemistry – the study of matter.
  • Physics – the interaction of matter and energy.
  • Earth and Space – planet Earth, the wider Solar System and beyond.
  • Thinking and Working Scientifically – develops understanding and skills of scientific models and representations, scientific enquiry, and practical work.
  • Science in Context – helps teachers demonstrate the relevance of science to learners and unique to our science curriculum.