Our transformative and creative curriculum is above all what defines and distinguishes Fulham Senior. Detailed guides to the different stages of study are below, but here are some of the highlights that characterise our approach to senior study.
The Fulham Project
Each Year group comes together once a year to make something, create art, design an event or an object. Depending on the Year group it might be a party, a play, a charity initiative, or an educational course for younger children. Pupils work alongside teachers in a symbol of the collaborative approach that characterises the community as a whole.
Whole-School Teaching
Every year all teachers come together to teach a single issue or topic from the point of view of their various disciplines. It might be a social issue such as crime and imprisonment, an engineering challenge such as the design and promotion of the perfect electric car, or a historical development such as the Enlightenment and its impact across science, maths and language. It connects the separate subjects together and illuminates the way they are applied to understand real-world problems. Skills in the core curriculum: we believe that enterprising thinking, public speaking, teamwork and presentation are vital components of academic education, in the same way that structured writing, planning, logic and sequencing all play roles in all the subjects students take. There is dedicated time in the core curriculum to address all of these. Within the traditional subjects, we aim to distinguish skills and content so that pupils understand how to apply their learning: how, for example, what they are covering in history may equip them to win a debate at breaktime as much as write the perfect essay.
Failsafe: Project-Based Learning
We are developing a Failsafe programme that encourages our pupils to take academic risks, chance their arm, and sometimes fail. We want them to use the cycle of attempting, failing, refining and succeeding to improve their understanding in a more deep-seated way, while increasing their resilience and tolerance of unfamiliar challenges. We believe that true obstacles sometimes defeat before they can be overcome. School must be a place where pupils learn it is the positive and determined response to setbacks that distinguish the most successful. This is part of our use of project-based learning across the school to foster independence of mind and problem-solving skills.
Years 10 and 11
Our GCSE curriculum is built around six core subjects: English literature and language, maths, and the three sciences. In addition, all pupils choose four courses, including a language, from the range of optional subjects available.
Alongside the ten assessed courses, each pupil undertakes we retain breadth for all. Every student undertakes a range of projects in PSHE, continues with dedicated curriculum time for enterprise and public speaking, and experiences a broad range of sports and activities in PE and on games afternoons. We emphasise the learning content of these activities: they are key components of the curriculum, not complementary activities supporting the curriculum.
Download GCSE Curriculum Booklet PDF
Year 9
In year 9 the curriculum is deliberately kept broad in order to allow options to be kept open as long as possible, and to stretch and challenge intelligent and enquiring minds. In many subjects the foundations may be laid for GCSE, but in all students are encouraged to look further than assessment and understand the value of what they are studying. Closing date for applications into year 9 in 2020/21 is 31st October 2019.
Teaching is varied and adapted to the learning requirements of the pupils. Teaching and learning are regularly reviewed and incorporate a mix of direct instruction, teamwork and project-based learning. The maximum class size is 22 to ensure a high degree of personal attention to all pupils.
Assessment goes hand-in-hand with personal support. Teachers use assignments and classroom observation to develop a detailed picture of each child’s needs and abilities and set targets to help them achieve their own best outcomes at their own pace.
Sport and the Creative and Performing Arts
We see all the elements of what is often called the extra or co-curricular programme as central to the learning experience at Fulham. The discipline of learning by practice and experience as opposed to discussion or memorisation is critical to the development of both creative and practical intelligence.
All pupils attend both PE lessons and games afternoons. PE features a range of activities with the focus on the individual. Games afternoons concentrate on team sports. The range on offer is wide and includes football, cricket, rugby, netball and rounders as well as gymnastics, athletics, basketball, hockey, tennis and swimming.
Music is a huge part of life at Fulham. Most pupils take individual lessons in one or more instruments. A huge range of choirs, orchestras and ensembles offer many students the experience of collaboration, disciplined preparation and performance.
Drama is of huge value to all pupils. As well as giving those who love performance the chance to develop their talent it allows everyone a sense of the spotlight: the value of preparation, the challenge of delivery, the satisfaction when it is over. All year 9 pupils collaborate in a play in the spring term and there are many other opportunities for drama and performance throughout the year.
We are passionate supporters of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. From volunteering to expeditions we feel that it enables pupils to look beyond their immediate experiences and complements our philosophy of learning through experience and practice as much as instruction. All pupils in year 9 have the opportunity to take part.