‘To the young, this is a world for action’. So says Dickens in the novel David Copperfield – a story about life and personal development penned just after the first Industrial Revolution – the period of technological advancement and social-economic change that reshaped almost every aspect of human life and brought about the growth of education.
As we enter an era deemed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ – driven by the emergence of Artificial Intelligence that is reshaping the world – the contemporary educational landscape demands more from pupils than traditional learning methods and as industries evolve, they require individuals to possess the advanced skills required for the 21st Century. To think critically, collaborate effectively and to be able to communicate confidently and clearly are now essential requirements for success in both the academic and professional worlds.
These three skill spheres – learning skills, literacy skills and life skills – provide a foundation for navigating the educational journey at school. Having a forward-thinking and rigorous curriculum enables these skills to interconnect and provide the best environment for every pupil’s personal and professional growth.
The Common Entrance Examination, sat in Year 8, brilliantly facilitates the development of these skill spheres. At Shrewsbury House School, it represents the culmination of a six-year programme of academic rigour, creativity, fun and personal growth. It is a programme that empowers our pupils to achieve their potential and perform at their very best. By embedding the ISEB curriculum, and working towards the academic level demanded, we are able to produce pupils who are very well-prepared for the next stage of their education. The Common Entrance Examinations represent an expansive framework, enabling schools to combine creativity with rigour, exploration and experimentation. It is a wonderful way to thoroughly prepare our pupils for the next stage in their lives.
At Shrewsbury House, we believe that there is great flexibility and scope within the Common Entrance curriculum. It enables and allows an incredible amount of the aforementioned creativity, the key ingredient that brings subjects and topics to life. In History, for example, where you are expected to learn about Henry VIII for the essay question on rotation, he is brought to life through comparisons with contemporary and topical figures such Donald Trump. This adds depth of opinion and understanding in relation to Henry as he is being explored through the analysis of a contemporary figure who intrigues the pupils. Furthermore, when teaching about the Battle of Hastings and how the Saxons broke their defensive line, this is illustrated through the boys’ rugby lessons where they reenact this situation to understand how the Normans could get behind the Saxons’ fractured defensive formation or “dog leg” as expressed in rugby.
The level of the Common Entrance is historically recognised as a benchmark of quality and a level that is in advance of a pupil’s academic age. When secondary schools are looking for verification that their new Year 9 cohort have maintained a high academic level since the ISEB pretest, schools universally recognise the Common Entrance papers as a proven standard where a proper judgement of the pupil can be made. Many of the papers, such as the English papers, are close to the GCSE standard and are therefore the perfect preparation.
Depending on an individual’s educational journey, the differing levels for some of the papers such as Maths with Foundation, Core, Additional and CASE develop fluency in mathematical skills and reasoning, promote investigative thinking and application of mathematical knowledge to unfamiliar problems. Pupils are therefore able to be really ambitious with their maths, and move themselves forward to achieve as highly as possible. In addition, from a teaching and learning perspective, the choice of levels perfectly links to the embedding of Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom which is proven to enhance pupils’ cognitive skills, boost critical thinking and elevate learning outcomes.
The Common Entrance syllabi provide a well-balanced and varied set of topics that enables preparatory schools to create a progressive curriculum that builds in cognitive complexity from Year 3 to Year 8. Again, due to the content that needs to be covered and the depth of study that it requires, pupils develop key skills such as resilience, learning from mistakes, focused concentration and working towards and properly preparing for a challenge – that sets them up for success with future assessments. By building in gentle exam practice and increasing the level of challenge over the academic journey, pupils are very well-prepared to sit their mock exams in Year 8; they feel ahead of the game in preparation for their GCSEs having experienced solid preparation in a controlled and measured way.
