Bulletin 1st June

Welcome back everyone - I hope you enjoyed the sunshine and had a well-deserved rest. Lots more glorious weather and no Year 10 this week!

Department Meeting on Tuesday
C26
3.15 - 4.15
Agenda
- Coursework / grouping issues (current Year 9 and 10) (TBo)
- Departmental priorities (TBo)
- Raising engagment through Co-operative learning in English / Media (TBo / EWa)


GCSE Coursework

Sorting out the GCSE coursework was difficult this year due to a high level of incomplete folders and numerous problems with adding up marks.

To try to make our coursework run more smoothly and effectively, I'd like to collect all the Year 10 coursework marks in over the next two weeks and will be sending out Excel documents for this purpose on Monday. Please fill them in with the grades for the coursework that's been completed so far, and I'll store this information centrally. This is a slightly fiddly job, but will not take more than a few minutes and it has the advantage of doing the adding up for us! I'll put the instructions on the email- any questions get back to me.


We do need to make sure that there are as few gaps as possible in our Year 10 coursework by the end of this year, so please keep the following in mind:


- coursework should now be completed in controlled assessment conditions, ie working in silence in class over approx two lessons.
- where students have missed this lesson(s), they need to complete the assessment as soon as possible, probably in a different classroom - let me know if you need me to supervise students in completing this.
- where work is missing from previous teachers, eg media or speaking and listening work from year 9, it is the current teacher's responsibility to ensure that this work is caught up and completed.



Year 9 this term

As Liz communicated last term, Year 9 will be asked to complete a SATS reading paper in week 3 of this term. Please do not feel that you have to spend a lot of time preparing the students for this - the skills tested are taught elsewhere in our KS3 SOW. It would be a good idea, however, to go through the format of the paper with them beforehand, and look at some of the wording for typical questions. We will distribute copies of the paper beforehand, and provide an alternative for students working below level 4.


Part of the reason that we are doing this is to provide us with supportive data for forming groups for next year, but please don't suggest to the students that their set placing is dependent on their performance (it isn't). Sets will be formed for next year using the following data, in the following order:

- Teacher Assessment levels from this year
- Writing grades from their Year 9 media piece (film review)
- Reading grades from the SATS paper
- Speaking and Listening grades from the end of year 9
- Prior attainment and FFT data

Have a great week!
Tom

Bulletin - 18th May

Hi all,

Well, just one week to go before the end of a manic term - thanks to everyone for all the hard work that's gone in and fingers crossed for kind questions in the exams. This week:

- Literature exam on Tuesday AM - it is essential that I get all copies of Of Mice and Men in from staff on Monday so that I can pass them on to the exams office in time for tomorrow's paper. I have sent an email around about this - please get texts to me ASAP.
- GCSE coursework - sample folders are being sent off on Monday, so please get any outstanding folders to me or put in the box in the English office as soon as you can - I need to drop them off in the exams office at lunch or p5.
- KS3 testing - as Liz mentioned in an email last week, we are going to ask year 9 teachers to conduct a SATS reading paper in the third week of next term. It will be the reading paper which was planned for the '09 tests. Year 9 into 10 students will be setted according to teacher assessment, and data on their reading test / media coursework.
First Story: we have been allocated a place on the First Stopry programme, which means that a professional writer will be coming into school to work with (probably older) students on a regular basis next year. Please mention this to any students in current year 10 - 12 who you think might be interested in taking part. More details here: http://firststory.co.uk/default.htm
Have a fab last week everyone,
Tom

Bulletin - 5th May

Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend, and didn't mind missing our duty day / manic Monday too much!

This week:
Tuesday - whole school staff meeting after school
Weds - Year 10 English exams (please see previous email on this)

Interns
We are welcoming Hannah back this week, along with a new intern for this term: Felicity Rombough. Please see the observation schedule circulated by Liz last week on this, along with the request for volunteers for Felicity to take up some of your classes!

VLE
It seems that the VLE page is still with us (rumour was that it was disappearing, but it hasn't!), so please remind Year 11 students that this facility is there for them to use for revision. This link will take them to the GCSE home page: http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupHomepage.asp?GroupID=419800 , but they can also access via the VLE link on the school website.

Year 11
Please remember to tell students about Nicky's fab-looking poetry revision service! Sessions every day this week by the looks of things - thanks Nicky!

Coursework
Thanks to all for the hard work that went into getting the coursework sorted, and particularly to Maz and Heather for filling in the little boxes! Next step is to hear which folders are called for moderation, at which point you'll receive back the folders for your students for checking.

Have a great 4 day week everyone!
Tom