For Parents
Inquiry: Blending the Curriculum
The Inquiry programme blends the curriculum areas and allows the boys to access crucial content through their exploration of solutions to the problems they are presented with. Whilst mainstream students may focus on characters in an extended text study in their English course, and the skill of mapping in their Social Science class, for Inquiry students this looks like students creating physical maps of the novel they read. It goes even further with students planning and plotting escape routes for characters and contemplating the terrain and difficulties that come with this.
Within the Inquiry programme, teachers cover the expected content of the mainstream curriculum areas, but do so by integrating these key skills, ideas and content into wider projects.
Supporting your son
There are many ways you can support your son in his learning in the TBC Inquiry programme. We try to support your son in developing a Growth Mindset which is based in Neuroscience on how the brain works. We aim to make your son’s learning visible in the following ways:
Individual Student Website
Students have their own website to published finished work. This will include not only their Inquiry reports, but also a range of other tasks. The links of the class are listed in this site. We encourage parents to check these out.
Google Classroom
We also make extensive use of Google Classroom which has a ‘Guardian’ feature. This enables parents to receive weekly or daily summaries of tasks that have been posted for their sons (see the example to the right). You can access more information about this feature and how to set it up at this link: Classroom Email summaries for Guardians.
Learning at Home
Education Perfect (used in class for Mathematics, Social Studies & English) provides us a digital platform to engage, promote self-assessment and reflection and to encourage self-directed educational growth. At times in Inquiry, students will be directed to use Education Perfect to explore concepts or review their understanding across the other curriculum areas. They may also be given tasks to complete for homework.
Students are expected to complete 60 minutes of maths activities per week. Students are welcome to complete more maths activities to help them achieve their individual maths goal. We use Education Perfect as a web based tool for individualising learning in Maths.
More information for parents is available on their website.
Are students at a disadvantage doing Inquiry over the mainstream?
The short answer is no, as we find all students regardless of ability find their level of success within Inquiry. Having said that there are natural concerns over not focussing so heavily on content knowledge in areas like numeracy and literacy. The data in the slides indicate an improvement in outcomes for Inquiry students over the two years and into senior school. Reading, writing, and speaking are key aspects of all inquiries and we measurably produce and assess more of this than mainstream. Maths is prioritised with dedicated "teacher-directed" periods and allocated homework. We feel any "shortfall" in content knowledge is offset by the gain in other skills like self-management and critical thinking that allow them to catch up and, in some cases, surpass their mainstream peers in senior school.