Rossall is a wonderfully enriching Senior School environment. Each year is its own phase and is carefully structured to:
Pupils in Years 7 and 8, our middle school years, are members of the Farrell Building, this is where they are based along with their tutors and staff for pastoral and social time.
This is a bridge from our Junior School, providing a step up to the Senior School experience within a Prep School environment. They then venture out around campus for their lessons, lunch and activities.
Pupils in Year 9, and above, will join one of our senior houses. We have three girls’ houses and five boys’ houses. All of the houses accommodate boarding and day pupils, so there is always a healthy crossover and blending of the day and boarding lifestyle.
The houses are a very important part of everyday life – firm friendships are forged, a great sense of belonging is engendered, and friendly rivalries with other houses are all part of the experience at Rossall.
In Years 7 to 9 pupils follow a broad based curriculum and study 25 one hour lessons during the course of each week. These include 4 hours of English, 4 hours of Mathematics, 3 hours of Science, with additional 1 and 2 hour lessons for other subjects.
In Year 7, our pupils enjoy a Modern Foreign Language carousel, where French, German, Spanish and Mandarin can be experienced fully. Two of these languages will be continued through into Years 8 and 9. A Modern Foreign Language is a compulsory part of the GCSE portfolio and the most able linguists can choose to study two languages.
Latin will be introduced as an option in Year 9, giving our pupils a year of the language prior to making a choice as to whether to continue to GCSE. This will give the pupils who opt for Latin a grounding in this important language and not only provide an excellent springboard for studying GCSE Latin but also help support many other subjects, not only languages.
In years 10 and 11 you will also study a range of subjects. Some subjects are compulsory: Mathematics, English, Science and one Modern Foreign Language (French, German, Latin or Spanish) but others are for you to decide.
COMMON CORE SUBJECTS (TAKEN BY ALL PUPILS)
Humanities (at least 1 must be chosen)
Modern Foreign Languages (at least 1 must be chosen)
Creativity/Active subjects
Design/Technology subjects
Other Subjects
Co-curricular subjects (Offered outside of the timetable)
COMPULSORY SUBJECTS
All pupils have to study the compulsory subjects of Mathematics, Science, English Language and English Literature and also a Modern Foreign Language.
SCIENCE
In Science, all pupils will study Biology, Chemistry and Physics but there are two different courses that will be followed.
The strongest scientists will study separate (‘triple’) Sciences and will gain three separate GCSE grades, one each of Biology, Chemistry and Physics (this is usually those pupils in set 1). All other pupils will still study all three sciences but not in as much detail as those described above. These pupils will sit for a combined GCSE Science qualification known by AQA as Trilogy which is equivalent to two GCSEs, and they will receive a double grade e.g. 77, 66 etc. at the end of their course.
All students begin their GCSE Science courses in January of year 9. Topics common to the separate and combined Science courses are taught in Year 9 and 10 and then the decision about which course is most suitable for each pupil is made later in Year 10 or at the beginning of Year 11.
HUMANITIES
Within the Humanities option, pupils will be asked to choose from History, Geography and Religious Studies. All pupils have to study one of those subjects but pupils can choose to study more than one if they wish.
MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
For the Modern Foreign Language option, pupils will be asked to choose from French, German and Spanish. All pupils have to study one Modern Foreign Language but pupils can choose to study more than one if they wish.
OPTIONS
Pupils then have the free choice of three other subjects from those in this booklet. As mentioned above, one of these choices can be a second Modern Foreign Language, or can be selected from the Humanities or “Other” option blocks.
ROSSALL DIPLOMA OPTIONS
GCSE Astronomy, Business Studies and Ancient Greek are offered. However these will be taught within the co-curricular programme, ie. outside of the six timetabled lessons per day.