Our curriculum
See what's cooking in the Jool Lab:
Grade 1/Year 2
Literature (48 weeks)
Dive into our captivating 1st Grade/Year 2 literature programme featuring beloved classics and modern favorites! Explore the mischief of Roald Dahl's characters, the whimsical worlds of Andy Griffiths and Laura Ellen Anderson, the adventures of Philip Reeve, Ted Hughes, and many more. This collection promises to enchant and inspire young readers while fostering a lifelong love of books.
Polymath (48 weeks)
Our Polymath Programme is our core Jool course that teaches critical thinking, enquiry, curiosity, and a whole lot more. This introductory Jool course explores the Jool approach to creative learning in our two Foundation Books before teaching the key Jool skills (Book 1), and ensuring students can present perfectly and academically (Book 2).
Introduction to Academic Writing (48 weeks)
Our academic writing programme is designed to take even the youngest learner and take teach them how to write essays, stories, articles, and everything else in between. We teach composition, work on structure, tackle important issues, and create balanced and talented writers who can write anything to anyone.
Grade 2/Year 3
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
Here, we examine ancient history from Hammurabi to the Egyptians to create a foundation of knowledge. We study Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World 1 as our textbook to provide a structure for the year before we dive into thinking beyond the pages in our Jool workbooks. This years is all about building analytical and critical thinking skills that are key as the students move forward.
Literature (48 weeks)
Featuring the imaginative worlds of Roald Dahl, Judy Blume, Anne Fine, and others. Students will develop critical thinking and empathy through stories like "The Borrowers" and "Kensuke’s Kingdom," while fostering creativity and a passion for storytelling with classics such as "Matilda" and "The BFG."
Polymath (48 weeks)
Year 2 starts with a bang as the students go off on a magical and scientific adventure through space and the subatomic world (Book 3). We then consider the world's biggest problems and inspire the students to solve them creatively (Book 4). Book 5 introduces icons from history who changed the world and Book 6 is our first unforgettable Why...? book, full of fascinating questions to foster knowledge and critical thinking in science, history, and more.
Academic Writing
In year 1, we studied the basics of composition and writing, so year 2 starts to introduce more complex and challenging skills like essay writing and academic reports. The aim here is to build academic skills early in an engaging way that the students can develop in the future.
Grade 3/Year 4
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
The course moves onto the Medieval period of history and we follow the fortunes of Genghis Khan, European wars, and how the world began to move along the Silk Roads from the East to the West. We try to use drama and creativity to unlock the subject's true joys rather than turning it into a dull bore. We build real academic historical skills to prepare students to understand how the modern world was built.
Literature (48 weeks)
Grade 3 adds more complexity into our reading list and starts to explore a wider emotional range through books like War Horse by Michael Morpugo and Skellig by David Almond. We combined these books with wonderfully imaginative children's classics like How to Train Your Dragon and Harry Potter to create a rich variety of styles, themes, and lessons to be learned.
Polymath (48 weeks)
As we our students get a little older, we start to add in more advanced subjects and take this polymath course higher and wider. We begin to consider philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and consider how they align with our core subjects of history, science, and literature. We do this in a way kids love - asking What if...? questions, How...? questions, and Why...? questions. We really ramp up the level here.
Academic Writing
By this point, our students have established a foundation and skills in writing, and can now complete high school tasks with relative ease. We introduce more research tasks and report writing to put the kids in the position of leader in their own educational journey.
Grade 4/Year 5
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
We kick off with Elizabethan England and the beginnings of the Slave Trade. Spain is building vast, rich empire with its galleons and ships, and the world is taking shape as Europe begins to dominate. This period is key in understanding the way our modern world is structured as wealth moves away from the ancient empires of Persia to the Christian expansions further West.
Literature (48 weeks)
Our grade 4/year 5 students have already enjoyed an incredible grounding in literature, so at this point, we begin to transition into challenging books like The Graveyard Book and Northern Lights, while maintaining a balance through Percy Jackson and Boy Giant. The novels get longer and the students build ever more academic and high-level academic essay, comprehension, and analysis skills in literature.
Polymath (48 weeks)
As students mature, we incorporate economic subjects to teach students about money and how it works. We also examine more complex scientific themes to an advanced level, but always in an enjoyable and stimulating way. We change topics weekly to keep learning fresh and focus on student-led activities and projects.
Academic Writing
By grade 4/year 5, our students are writing secondary/high school standard essays and assignments. So, with the academic skills in place, we aim to help students explore their own styles as writers and to explore their own self through their writing. We still insist on the key, core skills of great writing, but we want to elicit indviduality.
Grade 5/Year 6
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
As we move closer to the present, we start to see how events like the First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War that followed, shaped our modern world and organised its economies, cultures, and political ideologies. We don't back from complexity and challenge here, and in fact, the workbook expands the challenge by exploring deeper and more academic ideas.
Literature (48 weeks)
This is where the literature programme transitions into teen focused fiction and classic works like Animal Farm and To Kill A Mockingbird to ground students in the most important books of the past 100 years. We complement more serious works with imaginative works like Life of Pi and The Owl Service. The emphasis here is not on spending 3 months with a book, but a month or so to create more widely read and experienced academic literature students.
Polymath (48 weeks)
Grade 5/Year 6 begins with an examination of the key science and ideas of the future like nano-technology and quantum computing. We imagine a world regulate by AI doctors and how we might exist in it. After considering the future, we look at the past and present, too, by beginning to study Issues, a series of books all about understanding what drives our world, from world hunger to health. It's academic and it's awesome.
Academic Writing
We continue where we left off as we further improve the writing of our students. We build ever improving academic writing skills 4-5 years ahead of school, and start to allow students to pick and develop their subject matter. We're preparing students to drive their own research tasks (something they'll use regularly at university) and to use academic sources to support their work.
Grade 6/Year 7
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
Our textbook this year is Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. This is a foundation of knowledge that everybody should read to understand how and why each continent developed uniquely. Why is most wealth concentrated in Europe historically? Why did Aborigine Australians not become agrarian farmers and remain nomadic? This is an academic challenge for graduate students, but we write Jool sumamries of the main ideas to ensure our students get the important ideas.
Literature (48 weeks)
In grade 6/Year 7, we continue to combine rich, creative works of fiction like Children of Blood and Bone with serious works like the Diary of Anne Frank to create a stimulating and reflective experience for students. Students are exposed to different writing styles and genres, and given academic projects to analyse the texts, explore the literary devices and techniques used, and broaden their understanding of how to write.
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Polymath (48 weeks)
We continue building our students into true polymaths as we continue the entire year with Issues. This wide-ranging course helps students to understand almost everything around them, and, importantly, study the psychology that underpins us as humans. This course provides the ammunition for students to really transcend simple ideas and explore ideas and themes at a higher level.
Academic Writing
All talented writers thrive on feedback and this underpins this course. We focus on quality over quantity with regular redrafts and transformational strategies students can employ to improve their own writing. We work on stylistic protocols and when to use them, but also on when to reject them for effect.
Grade 7/Year 8
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan is the ultimate book to understand the history of the world's economies, how and why empires existed and still do, and what is yet to come. It's rock and roll history because we write our own irreverent and witty summaries to help students love the book, not loathe it.
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Literature (48 weeks)
In Grade 7/Year 8, we start to look at powerful and moving pieces like Of Mice and Men to build an understanding of world literature, and also incorporate key GCSE exam books like How Many Miles to Babylon? We do this because reading it once and studying it for a month the Jool way gives a remarkable foundation of knowledge to revisit and reactivate whenever this book comes up in the future. Though we don't love exams, we want to prepare our students for the challenge in the best way possible.
Polymath (48 weeks)
The Jool P.P.E (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) is our own answer to Oxford University's famed programme. The key difference is that we do it for 13 and 14 year olds. It's relentlessly challenging and designed to help students understand the things that presidents and prime ministers tend to need to know.
Academic Writing
We take a personalised approach to writing as students begin exam season in earnest. We want students to find school easy, so we aim to give students the key skills they'll need 3 years from now in school according to the national curriculums they study.
Grade 8/Year 9
History, Sociology, & Economics (48 weeks)
We continue this meaty mammoth of a book to expand our historical knowledge to an exacting level.
Literature (48 weeks)
We start to personalise our courses at this point to suit the needs of our students. We incorporate poetry, short stories, and key novels that they'll study at school to make exams a breeze.
52 Ideas
52 ideas is like a college degree compressed into 52 chapters. Each chapter encompasses one of the biggest ideas in our world from communism to democracy to competitive advantage to ecological collapse. It's advanced and it's university level. Perfect for Jool kids.
Academic Writing
Better writers, better outcomes at school, more options to build an incredible future! Simple!
Grade 9/Year 10+
Test Prep
Tests suck, but our world loves them. We aim to ensure our students fly in whichever test they take. There's no secret recipe, it's just hard work and understanding what each test is trying to do, how to show the examiner what they want to see, and knowing enough about the subject and showing you do.
English Literature
We tackle the books kids need to know at school to smash their high school exams and go to any university they wish.
Jool for School
This is our flagship high school course that does everything. Our tutors are polymaths and work with students to build their knowledge and skills in whichever subject they need help with as the weeks and months pass. Think of Jool for School like your personalised everything tutor.
Academic Writing
As students get closer to their GCSEs, it's essential to master the key skills they'll be tested on in their exams. We cover everything to make sure they're top of the class.