For the past several decades, the national curriculum has been considered the most balanced, effective, and rigorous curriculum taught to students. However, the landscape is gradually changing.
Previously, there was an exclusive focus on academic excellence. Today, curricula are designed with academic excellence and skill-building in mind. The national curriculum isn’t the crème de la crème of modern curricula anymore. Not only does it lack educational breadth and depth, but it’s also too prescriptive in nature and subject to political turbulence.
As a parent, you should have a razor-sharp focus on ensuring that your children are taught a robust, effective, and comprehensive curriculum. The Cambridge homeschool curriculum checks off these boxes.
At Cambridge Home School Online, we have over 20 years of experience in providing a quality British online education to students living across the globe. Over the years, we have utilised our expertise, experience, and specialisation to craft a well-structured, comprehensive, balanced, and rigorous curriculum that covers all the bases.
We believe that a good curriculum makes the learning process easier for students. It serves as the ideal roadmap for students, helping them study the right topics superficially and in detail.
Our independent, interdisciplinary, and well-rounded curriculum helps students gain rich insights and become confident, capable learners. Our students sit their exams with a powerful arsenal filled with the right tools. As a result, they secure top grades and achieve impressive academic excellence across different homeschooling levels.
In June 2021, 86% of our IGCSE students secured A*s and As in their target subjects. 83% of our A Level students secured two As and a B or higher, as requested by top universities. Moreover, all students who applied received offers from some of the world’s best universities.
This blog will dive deeper into the benefits of studying the Cambridge homeschool curriculum. Why should you switch from the national curriculum to Cambridge Home School Online’s independent curriculum? And how will this transition benefit your children? Continue reading, take notes, and feel free to share your thoughts towards the end of the blog. Let’s begin.
1. Consistent Academic Progression
We’re often approached by students who wish to take crash courses to improve their grades. The “crash course” learning approach isn’t just ineffective, but also extremely dangerous. The learning process shouldn’t be hasty. Instead, it should be gradual, consistent, balanced, and streamlined.
The national curriculum lacks educational breadth and depth, as highlighted above. As a result, students often feel that they’re rushing through it. They don’t grasp the concepts properly as several subtopics have been discarded entirely. Students struggle to build connections and understand interrelations. With their exams just a few days away, students feel jittery, anxious, and stressed about the outcome. This is the outcome of rushed preparation.
Our independent curriculum helps students reap the benefits of consistent academic progression. We have broken down our curriculum into well-organised topics and subtopics. Within each category, there are clear, easy-to-understand connections that help students navigate their syllabus with ease and adroitness. Our MA/MSc/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers help make this process easier.
Today, many conventional schools deliver rushed lessons that affect overall class performance. The student-teacher ratio is also particularly high. In fact, many conventional schools teach as many as 25 or even 30 students in a single classroom. As a result, students struggle to receive individualised attention from their teachers. They don’t learn as effectively, which ultimately affects their performance in school.
At Cambridge Home School Online, we’ve developed two approaches. For starters, we use an independent curriculum to ensure that students build essential connections and don’t feel lost because of gaps within their syllabus.
Secondly, we keep the student-teacher ratio low (8–10 pupils per group). Our students interact closely with their teachers, get detailed responses to their queries, and end their classes with high levels of clarity. Our approach, like our curriculum, is balanced and consistent. We don’t cram knowledge into a single lesson. Instead, our teachers develop a consistent pace that works well for the entire classroom.
As you take a closer look at our curriculum, you’ll notice that different topics are brilliantly woven together to bring about complete clarity. Our teachers use easy-to-understand examples, illustrations, and audio-visual guides to help students easily grasp each topic and subtopic.
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2. Improved Grades
We briefly discussed this in the introduction. In this section, we’ll dig deeper. Our homeschooling curriculum is designed to achieve academic mastery. It leaves ample room for flexibility and evaluation. Many conventional curricula are rigid and close-ended. Students don’t get the opportunity to ponder, creatively explore different aspects of their topics, and develop a more nuanced perspective of their lessons for the day.
Our curriculum departs from this age-old way of structuring curricula. It’s designed to be flexible. While our lessons are focused, we also leave room for a healthy, open-ended discussion. This becomes easier for our teachers to manage, owing to the flexibility of our homeschooling curriculum.
Students aren’t restricted to a specific set of concepts. Instead, they explore more facets of their subjects and tap into their creativity. This approach plays a big role in helping students improve their grades.
At Cambridge Home School Online, our students are recognised for performing exceptionally well in school. They progress very well across different schooling stages. Moreover, they sit their exams with a high level of confidence and clarity.
While an independent curriculum is important, it’s not enough. Simply teaching a well-rounded Cambridge curriculum cannot help students perform well in school. As an institution, we also ensure that each lesson is engaging, stimulating, and retentive. Young students often zone out of their classes, whether conventional or online. If teachers don’t use the right approach to maintain high concentration levels in the classroom, students will fail to stay on track.
We make sure this doesn’t happen. As an online school, we use advanced online teaching software solutions. We also leverage audio-visual technology to make each lesson more fun, palatable, and attention-grabbing. Our students pay close attention to their lessons and take away rich insights for the day. This approach helps students make the most of their lessons when combined with an effective curriculum. They learn more, perform better, and achieve impressive growth.
3. Skill-Building
As stated earlier, our curriculum doesn’t just help students achieve academic excellence. Instead, it also equips students with a set of diverse skills. As part of our Cambridge curriculum, students participate in different activities.
Our teachers identify a set of subject-related skills for every lesson. During these activities, students practice these skills and become more capable learners.
For instance, we focus on skills like problem-solving, computational thinking, reasoning, and empirical thinking for a subject like Mathematics. For Science, students master skills like observation, communication, classification, inference, prediction, etc. For History, we double down on analytical skills, critical reasoning, intellectual rigour, and so on.
This process is critical. Our flexible and well-structured curriculum leaves ample room for effective skill-building, enabling students to become practical learners.
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4. Igniting Curiosity
Every student should be curious about their world, the lessons they study, the homework they do, and the interactions they have with other people. Curiosity is the foundation of quick, efficient learning. If students aren’t interested in what’s happening around them, they may never take the time to dig deeper and discover the world they live in.
Our curriculum is designed to help students become more curious thinkers. We encourage students to develop a strong, lasting passion for learning. Our curriculum helps achieve this. However, we’ve also developed another approach that helps. Once their classes end for the day, students are given 24/7 access to a set of comprehensive, well-organised resources. They can browse through videos, PowerPoint presentations, study guides, past papers, previous catch-up lessons, and a range of other tools.
The learning process never stops. In fact, it further solidifies. Our curriculum reinforces the limitless nature of learning. Even when students think they have mastered a subject, there will be dozens of new topics to learn. Within these topics, students will find hundreds of new subtopics waiting to be explored! By maintaining good curricular progression, we help students look forward to their upcoming academic programs.
For instance, the IGCSE curriculum is robust, comprehensive, and well-structured. However, it doesn’t make students experts in a certain subject. That level of mastery then lies in the A Level curriculum. This progressive approach helps us ignite the spark of curiosity in students. They don’t develop a sense of haughtiness or superiority with regard to learning.
Our students are on a journey that doesn’t end. They are eager to learn, cover new ground every day, gain more knowledge, and expand their skillset.
5. International Relevance and Appeal
Our curriculum is suitable for students living across the globe. Whether your children live in London, Russia, India, China, Hong Kong, Kuwait, South Africa, Pakistan, or anywhere else in the world, they’ll receive a quality education that doesn’t feel out of touch or far from the world they live in.
Our curriculum has international relevance and appeal. We help students work on various topics, understand their strengths, dive deeper into their interests, and determine which direction they want to head in. Our curriculum makes it easier for students to understand which subjects they enjoy and which program(s) they’d like to study in the future.
It’s natural to find some subjects difficult, complex, and frustrating. On the other hand, students may find some topics easy, interesting, and fascinating. Every student has their own preferences. Our teachers help students work on their weaknesses, hone their strengths, and pursue their passions.
Across the more advanced learning stages (IGCSE and A Level), our curricula become more diversified. We cover both core (basic) and extensive (advanced) areas to give students an academic edge. Our students start off by re-learning the firm foundation we built in the primary and secondary schooling stages. Once the basics are crystallised, we cover more in-depth and comprehensive knowledge to help students ace their examinations.
Our international curriculum equips students with the tools they need to achieve academic excellence and attend prestigious universities at the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD levels.
At Cambridge Home School Online, we provide a quality Cambridge online education to students across four homeschooling programs: Primary Prep/Key Stage 2 (ages 7 to 10), Lower School/Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 13), Upper School/IGCSEs (ages 14 to 16), and Sixth Form/AS & A-Levels (ages 17 to 19).
Whether you’re looking for online primary schools in the UK, secondary schools in uk, homeschool gcse, or A Level programs, you can rest assured that you’re putting your children’s future in the right hands by choosing our institution. We use an independent Cambridge homeschooling curriculum across each academic stage, enabling our students to secure top grades and become proficient learners.
Take the first few steps towards securing a better, brighter future for your children by exploring the following links:
- Admissions Process
- Term Dates
- Application Form
- Scholarships & Bursaries
- Grades & Fees
- Online Reviews
If you have any questions or comments, we’re always happy to help! Please speak with our chatbot or schedule a meeting with our institution. We’re presently accepting applications from students living in the UK, Europe (including Western Russia), Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Since our school is almost always full, we recommend submitting an early application. This is the best way to increase your chances of receiving an acceptance letter from our institution. Thank you for trusting us!
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FAQ
What makes the Cambridge Homeschool Curriculum unique?
The Cambridge Homeschool Curriculum stands apart from the national curriculum due to its well-rounded, interdisciplinary approach. It is tailored for both academic excellence and skill-building. Unlike the national curriculum, which can be narrow in scope and prescriptive, the Cambridge curriculum is broad, effective, and adaptable.
How does the Cambridge curriculum contribute to academic progression?
The Cambridge curriculum is well-structured and broken down into clear topics and subtopics. This approach aids students in understanding connections between different concepts. With the help of highly qualified teachers, students experience gradual, balanced, and consistent learning, leading to better academic performance.
What is the focus on student-teacher interaction?
Cambridge Home School Online maintains a low student-teacher ratio of 8–10 students per group, allowing for more individualised attention. This ratio contrasts with many conventional schools, where the classroom may consist of up to 30 students, making personalised instruction difficult.
How does the Cambridge curriculum help in skill development?
Aside from academic achievements, the Cambridge curriculum aims to impart diverse sets of skills. For instance, a subject like Mathematics may focus on skills such as problem-solving and reasoning, whereas Science might include skills like observation and communication. This skill-building makes students more competent and practical learners.
Is the Cambridge curriculum internationally relevant?
Yes, the Cambridge curriculum is designed to cater to students worldwide. It prepares students not just academically, but also provides them with an international perspective, making it easier for them to apply to prestigious universities globally.