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Oxford Smart

11-16 science: making the most of Year 9

February 19, 2024December 4, 2024Oxford Science Team
Oxford Smart Activate

Strictly speaking, Key Stage 3 lasts for three years: spanning Years 7 to 9. But over the last decade, an increasing number of schools have switched to offering a two- or two and a half-year KS3 programme. This has allowed schools to redress the difficulty of covering the lengthy GCSE specification content in only Years […]

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Reducing cognitive load in Oxford Smart Activate

February 2, 2024December 4, 2024Oxford Science Team
Oxford Smart Activate

Cognitive load relates to the amount of information that a person can hold in their working memory at any one time. During learning, information is held in your working memory until it has been processed enough to transfer into your larger capacity long-term memory. If new information is not transferred, it will most likely be […]

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Oxford Smart Activate: Supporting all science teachers

November 21, 2023November 21, 2023Oxford Science Team

As every learner is unique, so is every science teacher. Each with their own specialisms and areas of interest, there are always going to be parts of the science curriculum in which science teachers are more-confident and others in which they need more guidance. Adding to that, teacher recruitment and retention being an increasing concern […]

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The science curriculum: time for a refresh

September 14, 2023September 12, 2023Oxford Science Team
Oxford Smart Activate Resource hub

What was happening in the UK in 2015? Justin Bieber was storming the charts with not one, not two, but three Number 1 hits. Dinosaurs were running amok again in Jurassic World. The polls opened for the general election. As all this was happening, school were preparing to update their KS3 science curriculum, in line […]

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Meet the Oxford Smart Activate authors

September 12, 2023April 2, 2024Oxford Science Team
Meet the Oxford Smart Activate team

Oxford Smart Activate is the next evolution of the best-selling KS3 series, Activate. From the initial discussions of the Curriculum Development group, through to the testing phase with over 20 Pioneer Schools working with Year 7 groups, the development of Oxford Smart Activate has been a team effort. We wanted to shine a light on […]

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Embedding Metacognition in your KS3 English Curriculum

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023Oxford English Team
Metacognition in KS3 English Curriculum

Sarah Eggleton explains how metacognition is embedded into Oxford Smart Quest for KS3 English curriculum, empowering students to understand and identify the best learning strategy.

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Assessment objectives in KS3 English curriculum

January 18, 2023February 6, 2023Oxford English Team
Oxford Smart Quest resource hub for assessments Assessment objectives in KS3 English curriculum

Oxford Smart Quest offers a consistent and coherent assessment structure that integrates seamlessly into the KS3 English curriculum helping both the learners and teachers.

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Curriculum design for Secondary English

January 13, 2023March 9, 2023Oxford English Team

Sam Gibbs provides handy tips on how to start the conversation about curriculum design in English at your school – plus, 3 reasons why NOW is the perfect moment to do so.

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Trialling Oxford Smart Activate: Interview with a Pioneer School

June 17, 2022August 11, 2022Oxford Education
Trialling Oxford Smart Activate

Martin Saunders, Head of KS3 Science, Chichester High School I work at Chichester High school which is a school of approximately 1500 students in West Sussex. Rated “Good” in our most recent Ofsted inspection, the journey continues on towards “Outstanding”. In light of this, we approached OUP to push forward our teaching and learning, along […]

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