Do I need to complete Textbook and Workbook 7 in one academic year?
The short answer is it is really up to you, and depends on the goals you have in place and the planning you do for your students. You can spend:
- A single academic year, which is about 32 weeks, aside from time allocated for revision, exams and extra curricular activities. (Check out our timetabling FAQ).
- Or, you can spend longer than one academic year.
Teaching the book in a single academic year
This is not difficult, as the book has been designed so that if you want to complete the content in a single academic year, you can. All it takes is some planning to decide what you think is essential to cover in a chapter and what is supplementary, which could, perhaps, be set as homework, self-study, for further research and exploration or supplementary classes.
This is what we do in our own academies (cover the book in a single academic year), and it is a great option for where you want to follow the full secondary syllabus, up to the age of 16 or 17. We already are working on publishing Books 8-11, so it you wanted to follow the age old one-textbook-per-year routine, you can do so.
To help make this easy for you in terms of planning, we have provided the following in each textbook:
1. A suggested teaching plan. This can be found in the contents page and it provides you with suggested number of weeks you may spend on a chapter, irrespective of whether you are teaching during the weekdays or weekends:
2. Lesson objectives. These (in each chapter) provide you with the key information you need to focus on. All else is supplementary and thus, useful for where you have ample time and you want to do extended activities, longer lessons, set self-study work or assign more homework. For example, in the picture below, the three bullet points are basically the core learning objectives for this chapter. However, there will be more information in the chapter beyond just the three objectives:
Teaching the book for more than one academic year
This is also another totally acceptable option, and when designing the material in the textbook and workbook we took this into consideration. The key benefit of this option is you will have more time to focus on the extra information and connections within chapters, as well as really get into the details (and hopefully great discussions) with your students.
How to extend chapters or find connections: Each chapter has ample additional information sometimes in the text, other times in the boxes, pull-out-quotes or great illustrations and diagrams. These not only revise previously taught material but also introduce related content which can lead to great spin-off lessons. Similarly, the workbooks have extended activities and project ideas to allow you to do this.
For example, in the picture below, you could potentially spend a full lesson (if you really wanted to!) discussing and doing activities related to actions of Muslims, interacting with other Muslims, self-motivation as well as aspirations and life goals!
The option of taking longer than a academic year is also great where you are using the book in a non-classroom based setting or with different age groups (yes, our books are also great for adults and lifelong learners!). For example, if you were using Textbook 7 for an adults class, or weekly community based classes, you can take as long as you want with the book.
"What about exams if I am teaching the book for more than an academic year?"
As for what to do when it comes to examinations? Just adapt your papers and tests to cover what you have actually taught rather then the whole textbook. We, of course, provide exam papers towards the end of an academic year. For Textbook 7, we will have (inshā Allāh) a full paper (which covers all the units), as well as a short paper (which covers more or less half the book) or perhaps, unit based test papers.