Hi all,
Just a couple of quick ones this week.
Media / Speaking and Listening Marks and Work
Could all year 9 teachers from last year please pass on your class work and marks for the S and L and Media pieces to Heather at some point this week. Heather will then organise the redistribution to the new classes. Julie - I have yours, so I'll pass them on.
Year 13 Re-marks
We are in the interesting position of having challenged a re-mark for some Year 13 Unit 6 candidates. Apparently they have been checked by the principal examiner, but they've also been checked by us and we are convinced that the marking is flawed. Anyway, the examiner has offered to send us a report of why the marks are so low - I'll keep you posted. Pat - is there any way you can get hold of Julia Peto's script photocopy and pass it to me? I might need the evidence! Next stop, the European Court of Human Rights ...
Thanks to Liz and Jamie for the work they're putting into the First Story project - seems to be going really well.
Observations
I am intending to start a round of observations in the near future. If there are any lessons you'd particularly like to be observed - I suppose either because something is going really well or really badly, or there are any issues with a class that you'd like support with - please let me know and I'll arrange it.
Thanks for all your hard work and have a fab week,
Tom
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Bulletin 5-10
Hi everyone,
First of all, a big welcome to Mary Brereton and Helen McGowan, who are our Brookes interns this year - see Liz's email for the obs schedule for this week.
Thanks to all for your work on Friday with performance management, and I hope that you found the experience positive and useful. One point on this - if you have lesson observation forms from last year's peer observations, please pass a copy on to me. Thanks also to Gary for taking Year 13 to the Globe (see photo) - sounds like a brilliant production!
Formative Assessment
Thanks to all for your contributions to the discussion on formative assessment at the last meeting. I would just like to clarify the expectations at KS3 to ensure that the policy is implemented consistently for all students and all units.
- Staff (and students) need to be clear about the precise assessment focus for each unit, and to have built in explicit teaching of that skill. If you are not clear about this, please refer to the SOW overviews on the shared area or speak to me / Liz.
- All classes should be given a mid-unit assessment point, in which students complete a short, focused task which requires them to display their learning in a particular skill area.
- Success criteria need to be shared and understood. The framing for this is to provide descriptors for ‘Good’ and ‘Excellent’ writing. The APP grids can be useful here, with Good encompassing levels 3-5 and Excellent relating to levels 6-8, but the exact wording will need tweaking to make it make sense.
- Opportunities need to be provided for self,peer and teacher assessment.
- Teacher assessment should be in the form of positive comments and specific targets, related to the success criteria. Using IT will make this process quick and efficient. Please do not put levels on students’ work – I will distribute an article this week which goes into more detail about the effect of levelling on student attitude andmotivation.
- Finally, follow up tasks need to be provided which allow students to act on their targets straight away. Again, marking on Excel will make this task simple to manage.
- However, please do keep a record of the level that the student has achieved – we will be required to report on this and use the data for tracking. I will therefore be collecting this data on a termly basis – if you keep your data on Excel this will be zzzzzzz….
Thank you for putting in the time and effort that this will require. It’s one of the strongest features of the department that staff are so willing to share resources, so thanks in advance if you are able to send useful materials round to colleagues. Please feel free to trial similar approaches at KS4/5. I will be looking to discuss this further and get feedback as to how staff are getting on with it; please come and see me with any queries or if you’d like to discuss the process further.
Shared Text at KS3
I’ve had several conversations about this unit with colleagues recently. I know that this unit can be very successful, but I’d just put out a reminder that there’s no requirement for all students to study the same novel, and that an alternative model is to have students working in groups with a particular novel. It’s an option, and one which I found helpful with regards to differentiation, motivation and student independence – see me if you’d like to discuss (there are definite challenges to doing it this way also!).
Open Evening
We could really do with some help on Tuesday afternoon sorting out C2 and C5 in preparation for Open Evening. I have got a few kids in doing a news report as suggested on Tuesday, but it’s not too late to invite others in if you teach any who keen.
One to One tuition
More details about the one to one.
Sessions would be outside school hours, but can be in school (so 3 - 4 in your classroom would be fine)
Students are KS3 and selected from the following criteria:
a) entered Key Stage 3 behind the expected level
b) are not on the trajectory to meet national expectations
c) are Looked After or may particularly benefit from this kind of additional support
We are in the process of generating a list students who hit one of these. Anyone with QTS can tutor, at £25 per hour. The class teacher is expected to provide targets / information about areas of the student's skills which need work. It is aimed at underachievement rather than SEN specifcally.
If you are interested, please let me know ASAP
C5 computers
As you may have noticed, 8 computers have been installed in C5, a mere 18 months after the project was agreed! The main thinking behind this was to address our desperate need for kit for producing practical work in GCSE / A Level Media, but obviously there are lots of opportunities for use in English lessons at all levels. Please have a look at the room timetable that Heather sent around and let me know if you’d like to use the room (although the room timetable does need AT’s lessons in there added on) . If I am timetabled in there, I am more than happy to room swap. Some potential uses:
- Group work on comupters, eg research, media work, moving image work.
- Personalising learning, by having students work on different targets or tasks
- Using a combination of computer / conventional approaches in the same lesson
The software is installed on these machines to control the websites that the kids can access. As soon as I’ve worked out how to use it, I’ll let you know.
Thanks everyone and have a wonderful week,
Tom
First of all, a big welcome to Mary Brereton and Helen McGowan, who are our Brookes interns this year - see Liz's email for the obs schedule for this week.
Thanks to all for your work on Friday with performance management, and I hope that you found the experience positive and useful. One point on this - if you have lesson observation forms from last year's peer observations, please pass a copy on to me. Thanks also to Gary for taking Year 13 to the Globe (see photo) - sounds like a brilliant production!Formative Assessment
Thanks to all for your contributions to the discussion on formative assessment at the last meeting. I would just like to clarify the expectations at KS3 to ensure that the policy is implemented consistently for all students and all units.
- Staff (and students) need to be clear about the precise assessment focus for each unit, and to have built in explicit teaching of that skill. If you are not clear about this, please refer to the SOW overviews on the shared area or speak to me / Liz.
- All classes should be given a mid-unit assessment point, in which students complete a short, focused task which requires them to display their learning in a particular skill area.
- Success criteria need to be shared and understood. The framing for this is to provide descriptors for ‘Good’ and ‘Excellent’ writing. The APP grids can be useful here, with Good encompassing levels 3-5 and Excellent relating to levels 6-8, but the exact wording will need tweaking to make it make sense.
- Opportunities need to be provided for self,peer and teacher assessment.
- Teacher assessment should be in the form of positive comments and specific targets, related to the success criteria. Using IT will make this process quick and efficient. Please do not put levels on students’ work – I will distribute an article this week which goes into more detail about the effect of levelling on student attitude andmotivation.
- Finally, follow up tasks need to be provided which allow students to act on their targets straight away. Again, marking on Excel will make this task simple to manage.
- However, please do keep a record of the level that the student has achieved – we will be required to report on this and use the data for tracking. I will therefore be collecting this data on a termly basis – if you keep your data on Excel this will be zzzzzzz….
Thank you for putting in the time and effort that this will require. It’s one of the strongest features of the department that staff are so willing to share resources, so thanks in advance if you are able to send useful materials round to colleagues. Please feel free to trial similar approaches at KS4/5. I will be looking to discuss this further and get feedback as to how staff are getting on with it; please come and see me with any queries or if you’d like to discuss the process further.
Shared Text at KS3
I’ve had several conversations about this unit with colleagues recently. I know that this unit can be very successful, but I’d just put out a reminder that there’s no requirement for all students to study the same novel, and that an alternative model is to have students working in groups with a particular novel. It’s an option, and one which I found helpful with regards to differentiation, motivation and student independence – see me if you’d like to discuss (there are definite challenges to doing it this way also!).
Open Evening
We could really do with some help on Tuesday afternoon sorting out C2 and C5 in preparation for Open Evening. I have got a few kids in doing a news report as suggested on Tuesday, but it’s not too late to invite others in if you teach any who keen.
One to One tuition
More details about the one to one.
Sessions would be outside school hours, but can be in school (so 3 - 4 in your classroom would be fine)
Students are KS3 and selected from the following criteria:
a) entered Key Stage 3 behind the expected level
b) are not on the trajectory to meet national expectations
c) are Looked After or may particularly benefit from this kind of additional support
We are in the process of generating a list students who hit one of these. Anyone with QTS can tutor, at £25 per hour. The class teacher is expected to provide targets / information about areas of the student's skills which need work. It is aimed at underachievement rather than SEN specifcally.
If you are interested, please let me know ASAP
C5 computers
As you may have noticed, 8 computers have been installed in C5, a mere 18 months after the project was agreed! The main thinking behind this was to address our desperate need for kit for producing practical work in GCSE / A Level Media, but obviously there are lots of opportunities for use in English lessons at all levels. Please have a look at the room timetable that Heather sent around and let me know if you’d like to use the room (although the room timetable does need AT’s lessons in there added on) . If I am timetabled in there, I am more than happy to room swap. Some potential uses:
- Group work on comupters, eg research, media work, moving image work.
- Personalising learning, by having students work on different targets or tasks
- Using a combination of computer / conventional approaches in the same lesson
The software is installed on these machines to control the websites that the kids can access. As soon as I’ve worked out how to use it, I’ll let you know.
Thanks everyone and have a wonderful week,
Tom
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