Why Us?
A warm welcome to Key Stage 3 at Biddenham.
At Biddenham we pride ourselves on our transitional curriculum, preparing students to move from year six into year seven at Secondary school. We understand it can be a daunting time for year six students and parents alike, we work closely with your child’s current school to build a personalised transition for the students. This comprehensive transition programme ensures your child is confident when they walk in on their first day of term as a year seven student.
During their first year at Biddenham, students will mainly be based in the new purpose built year seven block, however they will move out for lessons which require specialist facilities, for example PE, design technology and science. We support students moving into year eight, by running a more flexible programme, with lessons gradually being based outside of the facility and students becoming more independent in their learning and confident in moving around the entire school. During the last half term in year 8 students experience sample GCSE taster sessions and a careers fair to prepare them for year 9, before we pass them to the Key Stage 4 team who then move them into their GCSE curriculum.
Throughout your child’s time in year 7 & 8 they will experience a connected curriculum which fuses together both core and creative subjects to engage, inspire and offer opportunities to experience real life learning outside the classroom. Each term all topics are connected by a theme which enables students to make links between subjects that they may otherwise overlook. Creating these strong bonds between subjects helps students to problem solve and consolidate all of their knowledge.
Biddenham has a unique Key Stage 3 experience for students, which is inclusive, nurturing and personalised. We pride ourselves on knowing every student and having strong relationships with parents/carers.
To arrange a tour with the Head Teacher Mr David Bailey please contact enquiries@mybiddenham.com.
In ‘coming to terms’ with the pace, scale and sheer complexity of the changes that confront us in the modern world and education, there is one stable constant at the centre of our concerns, and that is the developing child. Increasingly brain research is showing that despite our many differences (shape, size, colour, temperament and speed of learning) there is a basic underlying ‘human nature’; in short, we can also root our thinking about school design in the basic contours of the human species and its ‘natural’ learning spaces.
This insight has led thinkers like David Thornburg to go back into our primordial past and begin to build a pedagogy (a theory of teaching and learning) that resonates with our essential human characteristics. It has led him and others to coin the phrase ‘primordial pedagogy’ and this is reflected in a set of concepts that has provided us with a useful reference point when considering the relationship between ‘human learning and space’.
Thornburg conceives of four essential spaces for human learning: the cave, the campfire, the watering hole, and the hunter-gatherer space (‘real life’); and to these we have added a fifth – the wilderness . This is the inspiration behind our three purpose built buildings to aid the transition from primary curriculum and design into the secondary learning environment.
At Biddenham we build on the confidence students gain in year 6 and give them an enriched experience through our connected curriculum. We pride ourselves in providing engaging learning spaces and offer the opportunity for students to embrace specialist facilities in the main school site. We give opportunities to all our students in year 7 & 8 to attend a range of external visits and engage with people in the local community to bring their learning alive
Please see examples of our immersive learning spaces that directly link to the theme for our year 7 students below.
In year 8 they still have a purpose built building but the classrooms become more traditional in style with the ability to still have the spaces available in the classroom to develop the theories of David Thornburg.
Want to see it for yourself?
Book a visit with the head teacher David Bailey by emailing enquiries@mybiddenham.com or visit our KS3 Twitter page @BISKS3_
Meet the Headteacher
Find out more about Biddenham School’s Head Teacher and his vision for teaching and learning.
Term Dates
Check for upcoming term dates and holidays.
IT Services
Discover Biddenham’s house system and how it integrates into everything we do.
