Form 3 Organisation and Curriculum
Welcome to Auckland Grammar School. We are so pleased that your son will be starting as a new Form 3 student. Click here to download a copy of the 2024 Parents Handbook.
Auckland Grammar School is committed to the philosophy that each student should experience success and hence build a foundation for excellence.
Each student has different talents. Each is encouraged to develop his potential to the full, with programmes designed to suit particular needs, abilities and aspirations.
To facilitate this, classes at all Form levels at Auckland Grammar School are streamed at the commencement of each academic year according to attainment. All Form 3 students are reclassified at the end of Term 1 on the basis of their academic results.
Auckland Grammar School offers an academic programme with emphasis on national and international syllabi – click here for more information about the Form 3 curriculum.
The School caters for the learning needs of the very able through streaming and accelerate programmes. The learning needs of less able students are catered for through streaming small classes and the provision of learning assistance programmes.
The School, by its streamed classification, provides the optimum system to enable all students of all ability levels to reach their potential. The curriculum offered to our students will be:
- Academic
- Balanced
- Challenging
- General
- International
While the world scene is changing quickly, and with it educational considerations, it is the philosophy of our School that there are still broad and basic educational requirements that have not changed.
We need to cultivate versatility, enhance the literacy and numeracy of our students and increase their scientific and technological awareness. No less vital are the skills of communication, written and oral, in foreign languages as well as English and Te Reo Māori.
For most young people, education and training needs to be more closely integrated, and we will need to educate for the increasing amount of leisure time that automation and information technology will give. Academic curricula therefore must be enriched by sport and the arts. There is also a need to teach literature and history, subjects that communicate the wider human perspective.
In each of these areas the content should be demanding, detailed and rigorously taught. Our aim must be to teach our students more not less. Too often some educationalists’ solutions to all our problems are to make subjects less rigorous so that students feel comfortable with it. In our opinion this just teaches students less of the knowledge needed to succeed in life today.
An educational theory of this nature is not accepted at Auckland Grammar School; the primary purpose of a school like ours is teaching and learning, not social adjustment. Certainly the curriculum and teaching must be flexible enough to meet individual capacities. Many students will not become university specialists but they still deserve to be literate and numerate. Our aim is to educate young men to play full roles in the life of New Zealand.
There will be two courses available for Form 3 students.
Students in 3A-3H will take English, Social Studies, Science, Mathematics, Latin, and Te Reo Maori or French or Japanese or Spanish.
Students in 3I-3R will take English, Social Studies, Science, Mathematics, and Te Reo Maori or French or Japanese or Latin or Spanish.
Note: All Form 3 students will also study Art, Health, Music, Physical Education and Technology.
School Diary
All Junior School students are issued with a School Diary within their first week, via their Form Masters. This diary is formatted with spaces for homework and comments by teachers and parents. In the front is a year planner, a place to record assessments marks, notes on how to study effectively, as well as other vital information about Auckland Grammar School.
All Junior School students are required to use this diary every period. Parents are asked to look at it at least once a week, and to sign it. The School Diary is the best resource to provide a clear record of homework set and is an important means of communication between teachers and parents.
Classification tests
These are sat by all Form 3 students on the first day of Term 1 each year. They consist of two separate examinations, one for English and one for Mathematics. Each test accounts for 40% weighting in determining a student’s Term 1 provisional class placement.
NOTE: the class placements for Term 1 are only provisional. There will be a reclassification at the beginning of Term 2 based on results of common examinations sat by all students towards the conclusion of Term 1.