COURSE OVERVIEW

 The S2 Course reflects the Experiences and Outcomes from Curriculum for Excellence in Social Studies, people place and the environment. The course is designed to promote active learning, thinking skills and problem solving in relevant contexts about our world.

In S2 pupils are continuing their journey around our amazing world with every new unit. Each one will offer a new environment to explore and a new skill to practice.

 Course Content:

Plastic Oceans (The Great Pacific Garbage Patch)

This unit introduces Environmental Science as a subject. As part of it, pupils learn about the dangers of plastic and its impact on our oceans.

Wild Weather (Phillippines)

Tropical storm season is lasting longer and the storms are getting more intense. This unit will teach you why that is happening. Pupils will learn about the dangers of tropical stomrs and what we can do to minimise those.

Disappearing Rainforests (Amazon)

Pupils will learn about a unique and wonderful biome that is the tropical rainforest. They will investigate the reasons for its disappearance and understand the impact of that not only on people but also on the wider environment.

Killer Rivers (Bangladesh)

Pupils will understand not only how rivers can change the landscape around us and their importance to humans but also the dangers that come with all that water. We will be having a look at how humans can change the course of rivers and how sometimes rivers fight back.

Poisonous Air (China)

As part of this interdisciplinary unit, pupils will learn about the invisible dangers of air pollution and how the local geography can sometimes work against you. They will elevate their research skills as they try to uncover the impact that politics can have on our health.

A variety of active learning and teaching strategies will be involved, from teacher led explanation and discussion to individual work; paired work; group work; researching and presenting information; interpretation and analysis of various sources of information; self and peer evaluation of work produced.

iPads are used thoughtfully to enhance learning to raise attainment.

We use a variety of assessment approaches to allow learners to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding, skills, attributes and capabilities in each subject:

• Observing day-to-day learning within the classroom.
• Coursework, including end of unit tests.
• Project work where pupils lead their learning.
• Teams’ submissions including homework and quizzes.
• Peer and self-evaluation.

Assessment is an integral part of our teaching and learning process and we recognise that regular positive and constructive feedback is very important to help pupils progress. As a result, learners receive high-quality feedback to support their understanding of their progress in learning and what they need to do to improve.

All pupil assessments are routinely graded and recorded by the teacher and the results are stored centrally, these results are used by staff to track the progress of the individuals and ensure that their needs are being met. Pupils received written feedback and next seps as well as verbal feedback. Staff report formally to parents via Tracking Reports and at parent consultations as per the school calendar.