The year, term by term
34 weeks across four South African terms.
Every grade follows the same four-term journey — looking and wondering, reasons and evidence, other eyes and hidden persuaders, then doing the right thinking — so families and teachers always know where they are. Lessons unlock one at a time.
Term 1 · 10 weeks
Looking & Wondering
Open the FET phase with the deepest question of all: what is knowledge, and how do we know we know? Epistemology as the foundation under every other skill.
Hold onto this term: Knowing is not just believing something true — it is being able to say HOW you know.
- Wk 1
Week 1: Philosophy of Knowledge
How do I KNOW what I think I know?
- Wk 2
Week 2: Belief, Truth and Justification
When does a belief actually count as knowledge?
- Wk 3
Week 3: When Justified True Belief Is Not Enough
Can I be justified, and right, and still not really know?
- Wk 4
Week 4: Certainty Versus Justification
Do I need to be certain to be justified in believing something?
- Wk 5
Week 5: How Do You Know That?
What are the different ROUTES by which we come to know?
- Wk 6
Week 6: The Limits of My Own Perception
Can I always trust what I see with my own eyes?
- Wk 7
Week 7: The FET Thinking Journal
How can my journal track HOW I know, not just what I think?
- Wk 8
Week 8: Living Well With Uncertainty
How do I act wisely when I cannot be certain?
- Wk 9
Week 9: A Knowledge Question Worth a Year
Which deep question about knowing do I want to carry this year?
- Wk 10
Week 10: Looking & Wondering — Term Review
What have I learned about the nature of knowing?
Term 2 · 9 weeks
Reasons & Evidence
Scientific literacy as the clearest worked example of how a community comes to know: theory, evidence, falsifiability, models and the line between science and pseudoscience.
Hold onto this term: Science is not a list of facts to memorise — it is a method for being wrong less often.
- Wk 11
Week 11: What Makes Something Scientific?
What separates a scientific claim from any other claim?
- Wk 12
Week 12: Falsifiability: The Test That Could Fail
If nothing could ever prove a claim wrong, what is it worth?
- Wk 13
Week 13: Hypothesis, Theory, Law — What People Get Wrong
Is "just a theory" really a put-down?
- Wk 14
Week 14: Models: Useful, Not Perfect
How can a model be wrong in detail and still be useful?
- Wk 15
Week 15: Vaccines and Evidence
How do I weigh a scary story against the actual data?
- Wk 16
Week 16: Spotting Pseudoscience
How do I tell real science from something wearing its clothes?
- Wk 17
Week 17: Correlation, Cause and the Real World
When does "linked to" actually mean "causes"?
- Wk 18
Week 18: How Science Self-Corrects
Why is changing its mind a strength of science, not a weakness?
- Wk 19
Week 19: Reasons & Evidence — Term Review
How well can I now judge a scientific claim?
Term 3 · 9 weeks
Other Eyes & Hidden Persuaders
Widen the frame: knowledge traditions across cultures and African ways of knowing, then the spin that dresses interest as science — with climate communication as the worked case.
Hold onto this term: No single tradition owns the question of how we know — and powerful interests will always dress their case as "the science".
- Wk 20
Week 20: African Philosophy of Knowledge
How have African traditions understood what it means to know?
- Wk 21
Week 21: Indigenous Knowledge and Modern Science
Can indigenous knowledge and modern science both be right?
- Wk 22
Week 22: Standpoint: Where You Stand Shapes What You See
Does WHO is asking change what counts as knowledge?
- Wk 23
Week 23: Whose Knowledge Got Written Down?
Why is some knowledge recorded and other knowledge erased?
- Wk 24
Week 24: Climate Facts vs. Climate Spin
How do I tell the climate science from the climate spin?
- Wk 25
Week 25: Manufactured Doubt
How is "doubt" deliberately created when the evidence is clear?
- Wk 26
Week 26: The False-Balance Trap
Is "both sides" always fair — or sometimes misleading?
- Wk 27
Week 27: Disagreeing About Knowledge, Respectfully
Can I take another tradition seriously and still reason critically?
- Wk 28
Week 28: Other Eyes & Persuaders — Term Review
How has this term widened how I think about knowing?
Term 4 · 6 weeks
Doing the Right Thinking
Put epistemology to work: build and defend a genuine knowledge claim of your own, reason about the ethics of knowing and not-knowing, and reflect on the opening year of FET.
Hold onto this term: Knowing carries a duty: to seek good evidence, to admit what you do not know, and to tell others honestly.
- Wk 29
Week 29: Building a Justified Claim
Can I make a claim of my own and properly justify how I know it?
- Wk 30
Week 30: The Ethics of Belief
Is it wrong to believe something on bad evidence?
- Wk 31
Week 31: The Courage to Say "I Don't Know"
Why is admitting ignorance a strength, not a defeat?
- Wk 32
Week 32: My Knowledge Question, Revisited
What have I learned about the question I chose in Week 9?
- Wk 33
Week 33: A Year of Thinking About Thinking
How has studying knowledge itself changed how I think?
- Wk 34
Week 34: Into Grade 11 — Review & Celebration
How do I carry "how do we know?" into questions of society and power?