The course enables students to develop their ability to analyze unfamiliar problems, devise problem solving strategies, and evaluate the diverse ways a problem may be solved. During a Thinking Skills course, students learn to put their personal views aside in favor of examining and evaluating the evidence. Students learn how to make informed and reasoned decisions and construct evidence-based arguments. These independent thinking skills build confidence and equip students with a toolkit for tackling complex and unfamiliar subjects, essential for successful progression to higher education or into professional employment. 

The course is designed is to improve learners’ skills in reading and writing and the ability to think critically about contemporary issues. It also seeks to improve communication in English.  The strategies for reading and writing explored in this course can transfer to any academic field, making it foundational to learners’ overall educational experience. Each unit builds reading skills, which scaffold into writing. 

This Course is the backbone through which all AICE candidates must pass here at Langtree Charter Academy. The course is designed to study large, complex, global issues from a variety of perspectives with the ultimate goal of passing 3 exams. Paper 1 is given in May and has the students deconstructing articles to compare their arguments and weigh their respective strengths and weaknesses. Paper 2 is is a 2000 word essay answering a question of the student's choosing on a global topic with multiple themes/perspectives that is submitted during the school year. Paper 3 is a team project with multiple components; an 8 minute videotaped individual presentation in class, a PowerPoint, an 800 word reflection paper with the group's solution(s) and a transcript of the videotaped presentation, all of which is submitted during the school year, 

This course aims to encourage an interest in, and appreciation of psychology through an exploration of the ways in which psychology is conducted. This exploration includes a detailed review and investigation of several important research studies (12 specific studies). The emphasis is on the development of psychological skills as well as the learning of psychological knowledge. The key concepts and primary objective on which this syllabus is built are as follows: Nature versus nurture, ethics in psychological research, the need for research constraints and the use of some research techniques. No one view in psychology is definitive: Psychological theories are developed by posing hypotheses which are then tested through research 

This course offers learners the opportunity to explore the processes that are shaping current trends and also to develop an understanding of the complexity and diversity of human societies and their continuities with the past. The study of sociology stimulates awareness of contemporary social, cultural and political issues, and focuses on the importance of examining these issues in a rigorous, reasoned and analytical way 

Learners widen their knowledge and understanding of global geography while developing their investigative abilities and their evaluation and decision-making skills.  The course is wide-ranging and comprises a variety of options. For example, learners can study topics such as hydrology and fluvial geomorphology, atmosphere and weather, rocks and weathering, population change and settlement dynamics. The syllabus considers a range of environments, from tropical to arid, and learners can also study subjects such as environmental management, global interdependence and economic transition.

This course seeks to educate students about environmental issues, systems, patterns and mechanisms while emphasizing what impact humans have had on the world around us and how we may manage this impact sustainably. Through this class, students learn to analyze and consider environmental issues on both local and global scales, the importance of sustainability in resource management and the necessity of a global perspective when considering these diverse issues. 

Students will develop skills to make critical and informed responses to a wide range of texts. Students will also demonstrate their ability to produce writing for specific audiences. We read and write descriptive and imaginative pieces, newspaper and magazine articles, blogs and podcast scripts, biographies and autobiographies, reviews, advertisements, and more. We focus on the way that authors create various moods and effects in their writing, and we students will work on creating these effects in their own writing. 

Students will study a range of texts in the three main forms: prose, poetry and drama. Set texts are offered from a wide range of different periods and cultures.  In class we will develop skills of reading and analysis of texts, and are encouraged to undertake wider reading to aid understanding of the texts studied. They will learn skills of effective and appropriate communication including the ability to discuss the critical context of texts.

This art and design course considers expression and communication. Learners gain an understanding of visual perception and aesthetic experience, and the ways in which art and design creates a language of its own.  Most of the work for this syllabus is practical or studio based, so that learners can develop their abilities of observation and analysis of the visual world, sensitivity, skill, personal expression and imagination. They also learn how to relate their skills to an enhanced knowledge of their own cultures, past and present, as well as an appreciation of practical design problems.