Teacher-in-Charge - Mr S van Wyk
Email: s.van.wyk@kingscollege.school.nz

The Integrated Studies course is designed to select significant content from a wide variety of sources to develop skills, attitudes and values that our students need. This new course of study will be issue-based and will link with all subjects and disciplines to promote student learning.

A large body of worthwhile content or "life knowledge" exists that does not fall within the scope of our existing school subjects. This material offers valuable learning opportunities, not only in its own right, but also in its potential to provide an effective context for teaching the key strands of the junior curriculum - thinking and learning, making meaning, personal and social awareness, and habits of mind. It is the process of learning which forms the basis of the content of the course.

The topics for study for the year include:

Life Skills - a focus on assisting students to discover more about themselves, to develop awareness about making choices, and to equip them with some important life skills;

Learning and Remembering - students consider some of the latest scientific discoveries on how the brain works and use these to hone their thinking and study skills;

Philosophy - a study of philosophers and the thinking tools, methods and approaches they dsicover and invent and the application of these to current issues;

Media and Literacy - how news is made and transmitted, and the awareness of the possible impacts of the presentation of different cultures, ideas and beliefs;

Future Studies - the forward-looking equivalent to history, where we look at our origins and to pose questions about where we might want to go, what we might want to achieve, and future possibilities for society and individuals;

Leadership - as styles, service, goals and communication;

and project based work based on current issues.

Year 9 students will sit an examination in Term Two and Term Four as for their other course subjects. For the Term Order Grades students will receive an attitude and effort grade and an order mark.