The First Three Years

Year Seven

A great deal of time is spent making sure that pupils settle into the School properly - they cannot work well if they are not happy.

All new pupils are invited into the School. The new school year officially begins with two "induction days", one before and one after the summer holidays. We hope this will ease any worries pupils may have and ease them into their new school with little or no stress. All new pupils are provided with an induction booklet. This contains lots of information - e.g. an individual timetable, map of the School and a section on what to do in different circumstances.

The Form

From the first day until the end of their two years in the Lower School each pupil will be in a Form selected on the basis of geographical origins and/or their old school. In this way we hope that all pupils will either have a friend they already know, or pupils who live nearby with whom they can make friends, travel and share homework folders. Each Form will have as its Form Tutor a member of staff who will take responsibility for seeing that pupils settle in as quickly as possible. They will take the twice-a-day registration and the one weekly Form Period, and keep a close eye on each pupil's Prep Diary, as well as helping them with the first stage of our Record of Achievement scheme - the Year Seven scrapbook.

Form Period

During the form period a variety of Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) topics will be covered. A typical syllabus is detailed below.

Year Seven	Year Eight
Study and examination skills	Study Skills/Examination Skills/Revision
Rules and responsibilities	Relationships
Dealing with situations	Drinking
Perceptions and knowledge of drugs	Friends and Friendships
New Faces, New Places	Images and Labels
Study and Homework	Personal Finances
Getting organised	Smoking
Personal Hygiene	Organisation
Rail Safety	Communication Skills
Road Safety	Keeping Fit for Life
Record of Achievement	Diet and Health
Revision and memory skills	Record of Achievement

Year Eight

Having now settled into the School, a second year pupil's prime purpose is to work hard, establish their academic credentials and become involved in the extra-curricular life of the School. Form Periods continue with the same variety of input; Records of Achievement become more formalised - pupils are interviewed by their Form Tutors to discuss their progress and achievement targets are set. Each Year Eight Form will take one of the weekly Lower School Assemblies, having chosen its own theme and mode of presentation.

Year Nine

This is an important transitional year. The range of maturity exhibited by pupils is particularly marked in this year group. Form Tutors and the Head of Section are sympathetic to these differences and to the physiological changes occurring at this time. They offer advice and guidance. They give pupils sufficient freedom for them to be able to develop their own identities, whilst providing a security of structure.

In this year some additional pupils join RGS from other schools. These pupils quickly learn the geographical layout of the school, and break into peer groups to form friendships of their own. It is the usual policy of the School to re-organise the pupils on the transfer from Year Eight into Year Nine to obtain four or five Forms of comparable standard. Pupils will be taught in ability sets for Maths, English and French, but other subjects will be taught by Form in mixed ability groups.

Pupils in Year Nine have the opportunity to start a second foreign language: German, or Spanish, or continue with Latin. During the year the pupils will make their choices of subjects to study in the Middle School for GCSE. There is also an opportunity for them to join the Combined Cadet Force or the Duke of Edinburgh Award Group after Easter in this year.