Bulletin - 6th December

Hi all,

Netbooks

We now have a class set of 28 wireless-enabled netbooks exclusively for use in the English department. This is an exciting development with massive potential for improving engagement and learning in the department, meaning that we can begin to take a more flexible and personalised approach to the use of ICT. They are currently stored in C2, but do let me know if you'd like to use them with your class. You don't have to use the whole lot... I will try before Xmas to get a proper booking system and guidance notes out, but in the meantime, feel free to have a go! I've used them and they are fab.

Sick of Powerpoint?

Then have a look at this: http://www.prezi.com/ - surely the future for creating presentations!

Sharing Practice document

Many thanks to everyone for the Agile Teaching observations that have been conducted recently; I have seen some absolutely brilliant teaching and learning, and some inspiring lessons. I have collected the main features of this together into a document which aims to share features of successful lessons, as well as common themes where activities have been less successful. The idea is obviously that we can refer to this when planning and share successful approaches across the department. I'll distribute paper copies of this as well as an email version on Monday.

Cheney News - English Bulletin

- I'd like to make a short Cheney News-style film to show to classes as a celebration of achievements at the end of term - would teachers therefore please decide on a particularly impressive piece of work that they've had this year, and be ready to talk to camera about it? Any other ideas for this?

Have a great week!

Tom

Bulletin - 22nd November

Hello Everyone!

Quite a lot going on at the moment, as you've probably noticed!

Please see minutes and action points from meeting on Tuesday

Year 11 Mocks and Mock Feedback
Mocks are happening this week and mark schemes / papers will be with you shortly. It's obviously important that our work here has a considerable impact in terms of helping students to understand their performance and what they have to do to improve; we need to make full formative use of summative testing in this instance. To this end, you will shortly receive a formative assessment lesson to deliver to students, in which they are asked to self and peer mark their performance in the mocks. It is therefore important that you do not write the marks you give on the actual exam paper, as this means that we can ask students to self-assess before we give them their scores.
As in previous years, you will receive a document for recording their marks per question in the exam paper. In return you will receive a question by question analysis of your class performance, and students will receive personalised feedback which highlights their weaker skill areas. If you feel unable to fill in the Excel document yourself, do pass your handwritten marks on to Toni. However this really is a straightforward process, and one which will be increasingly useful for teachers, so if you want to be shown how to do it I will run a session from 3.15 - 3.25 on Thursday after school in C5. Let me know if you want to turn up.

As I said, resources (mark scheme, blank Excel, formative assessment mark scheme for students) will be provided ASAP.

Progress Files
Thanks to Toni for sorting out everyone's allocation of Progress Files for each year group - if you haven't yet collected these, they are available in the office. Please see the emailed lesson for introducing the documents to your class, along with the reflection activity for your first lesson, and try to do this ASAP. It would seem sensible to keep them in your students' files and ideally give them out at the beginning of each lesson so that they can add targets, spellings and refer to the learning intentions and success criteria regularly. Please do try to integrate this into your teaching and get students used to using them, and we'll review the impact they are making in the summer.
There is a mistake in the year 7 one, in that the Content and Approaches for the Narrative unit actually contains the text for the Media unit - sorry about this! I could create a little replacement to stick in files if this might be useful? Thanks Corinna for pointing it out.

Learning WalkAW will be visiting lessons on Thurs am to have a look at Agile Teaching (TBo, JKy, EWa).

Agile Teaching / TLC focus
It would be helpful to know what we've all decided on as our area of focus deriving from the TLC initiative - mine is trying to get better at questioning, particularly when teaching Lit. If you could send me a quick email with yours that would be great and I will share them all with the dept if that's OK with everyone.

Website for year 11
I've knocked up a website for GCSE revision, using the unbelievably easy www.wix.com to host it! You can find it on http://www.wix.com/cheneyenglish/gcse - whilst I recognise that this has been nicely timed to miss helping students prepare for mocks, we can nevertheless point them in this direction from now on. It's a bit of a prototype and I've struggled to make it look nice or at least not horrible, but hopefully we can develop it from here - it's dead easy to edit and add resources to. We need to have some sort of online provision, and in the absence of the VLE, this does the job. There are some great resources on here though, particularly YouTube videos nicked from other schools - ideal for use in class! The guy from Cooper School in Bicester has done some amazing stuff - do have a look - the direct link to his YouTube page is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/bm124#g/u , also Westminster College School have some great videos available here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wcsenglish&aq=f

Have a great week everyone!
Tom

Bulletin - 8th November

Hi all,

This week:

• GCSE Paper 1: Mon
  
• GCSE Paper 2: Weds


• Tues: My understanding is that Tuesday's meeting is split between Leadership training for department and college leaders, and VLE training for everyone else. Therefore Csw, Pto, ACl, Pwa, JKy have got VLE training to look forward to, whilst EWa, TBo, JD, NTu, NBr, AW are at the Leadership thing. I don't know venues or times, so I suppose just wait for an email or SERCO message.


• Weds: 6th Form Open Evening (7 - 8.30)
  
• Friday: unbelievably, it appears to be our turn for Staff Tea again, so I will hastily arrange some sort of dubious reason for absence, will let you know when I think of something half-plausible.
  

Success Booklets

The booklets we discussed at the last meeting are now more or less ready, and I'll put them in to Trish for photocopying on Monday. I've made the adjustments that were suggested, alongside a little shuffling about of assesssment foci (nothing drastic) to ensure that we have a good balance of mid-term assessments over the three years. So, expect to get your lot fairly soon - perhaps we could all start by filling in the reflection sheets for the units that have just finished, so I'll try to sort out a ppt for this.

Thanks...

... to all those colleagues who have been sharing resources recently; please do have a look at Gary and Paul's spoken language stuff, Liz's success criteria and Corinna's poetry presentation (I know there's other stuff that's come around as well)... also thanks to Pat for her prolonged and time-consuming Erin Brockovich -style campaign for justice in chasing up the re-marks for our AS Lit exams!

Excellent Lunch
The lunch at the Media Studies moderation meeting that I attended on Friday was absolutely first class; thanks to all those colleagues who expressed concern on the matter. On a less positive note, I have done my back in, helping to move a friend's shed.

Have a great week!

Tom

Bulletin - 1st November

Hello all and welcome back.

This term:


Year 11 Mocks
The English mock this year will be on Monday 22nd and Tues 23rd November. Unless anyone objects, I suggest we use the November 2009 exams (accessible here: http://www.aqa.org.uk/qualifications/gcses/english/english-a.php ), and avoid using the Suffragette one (although it would be good to do that one in class, if only to show them to expect the unexpected!). It's the Police one for Section A and Night of the Scorpion 'aspects of people's lives' for Paper 2. It also uses the new numbering system, so probably better than doing the Bryson one.


In terms of feedback, I'm interested in trying to build in more formative approaches for this, rather than just giving grades back - given the amount of time we put in, it would be good to be making the students work a little harder in generating their own feedback. I've been trialling this with my current year 11s, and will send around some materials for peer and self-assessment of mocks for year 11 teachers to have a look at.



Competions:
- Various competitions and events are advertised on the student bit of SERCO, so please publicise with your classes.

Thanks
Tom

Bulletin - 18th October 2010

Hi all,

First of all, a massive well done and thank you to everyone for the work that's gone in to creating such a smooth start to the year. Detentions are right down, and the atmosphere in classrooms seems great. Also, Open Evening was an enjoyable affair - thanks to Pat for her hospitality in C24, and to all for manning the hatches. Lots of positive feedback from parents apparently.

This week:
Department meeting on Tues
C26
3.15 - 4.15
1) Documentation update and discussion for KS3 (25 mins)
2) TLC influence on English (10 mins)
3) Sharing Practice and reflection on Term 1 (20 mins)
4) Resourcing update (5 mins)
5) AOB

Welcome
A warm welcome to the team to Felicity, who begins this week in the role of department cover supervisor. This will allow us some exciting potential for flexibility, particularly by way of enabling small group intervention during normal lesson time, so do have a think about how we might begin to capitalise on this.

Year 11 Coursework
Just a reminder that we are moderating this year's coursework in January - Jamie is sending a spreadsheet around for marks.

Have a wonderful last week of term everyone,
Tom

Bulletin - 4th October 2010

Many thanks to Gary for organising yet another Sixth form Theatre trip! Much appreciated and enjoyed by the students.

Performance Management
The pairings for Performance Management on Friday are as follows:

TBo meeting with JKy and PTo
JKy meeting with CSw and NTu
PTo meeting with GSn
I think that that's the lot, as everyone else is either an NQT or line managed elsewhere... of course if Jamie's baby arrives, we will have to change things around, in which case NTu will meet with me and CSw will go to Pat.
PM meetings will last one hour, so please arrange a time to meet. You will receive your class data in advance of the meeting, but there is also a requirement to gather and bring your review from last year, alongside any evidence you want to provide to show where targets have been met. PW has confirmed that the process will be the same as last year, meaning that there is a requirement to provide comments from colleagues as part of the 360 element. See guidance sent around by PW for further clarification.

Competitions

I'd like to run the following competitions and events prior to Christmas
- A photo competition whereby students enter photographs of themselves reading in unusual locations
- A book-grab, whereby students can bring books they have already read, acquire tokens, then swap their tokens for books brought in by others
- I am also interested in the idea of running a Junior First Story group for KS3 students, which would shadow the Senior group - I'll be in touch with details.
This info will go onto SERCO and also be announced in assembly, but feel free to publicise with your classes

KS5 Attendance
Please can we keep a close eye on the attendance and performance of KS5 pupils, and let me know of any students who are not turning up or not getting work done properly. As a rule, it's a good idea to insist that if a student is to be absent, they email the teacher to let them know before the lesson - this is courteous and makes checking up on attendance more straightforward.

TES Resources
I know that lots of us use Teachit, but recently I've been exploring the TES resources section - if you aren't aware of this already, you just need to register and you get access to some pretty useful stuff - some dross of course, but I found a pretty good OMAM SOW here http://www.tes.co.uk/ResourceDetail.aspx?storyCode=3003921 , and there is loads of other stuff available, so it might be worth a look - for example, this link takes you to all the OMAM resources and there are loads of them! http://www.tes.co.uk/TaxonomySearchResults.aspx?parametrics=46651,47434,47862,48061,48124&event=23&mode=browse

Have a wonderful week!
Tom

Bulletin 20th September

Hi all,
Thanks to all for the hard work that's gone into a smooth and enjoyable first two weeks! Jolie was very complimentary about the level of focus and positive atmosphere in the lessons she visited last week, so hopefully we can keep this going!

Tues: College Meetings 3.15 - 4.15


GCSE Year 10 Update and Issues
I've emailed around a course plan (as agreed last year) for Lang / Lit classes, and have put one together also for English (thoughts please from Pat, Jamie, Nicky about the English one...looks a bit tight but would be good to get everything done in Year 10 perhaps? We'll discuss). Anyway, I'll get a stack photocopied for distribution to the students. It's very clear in putting these together that the timing is very tight and we need to be very careful not to allow units to drag on beyond their allotted time - remember that anything done in year 10 has to be submitted at the end of year 10, so please do start CA's at the agreed times, and chase absence wherever possible.

Controlled Assessment

According to our course plan, Controlled Assessments in English and English Language need to take place soon - probably next week for most classes. Please see the link sent around to access the planning notes pages for this, and bear in mind that the notes pages are to be attached to the work when we send it for moderation, so it's obviously important that we are following guidlines correctly here. The exam board guidance states:

'Candidates may take brief notes into the formal assessment period. These must be checked to ensure they do not include plagiarised text, detailed planning grids or a pre-prepared draft.
Any preliminary drafts produced by the candidate during the assessment period must be submitted with the final draft for assessment and moderation.'

Clearly, it's debatable as to what constitutes a 'detailed planning grid'! I'll send around the rest of the FAQs via email, although they are also available on the shared area. Also, if anyone would like to meet to discuss this, can I suggest that we do this on Wednesday after school in C5? I would appreciate the chance to talk this through - if anyone else does, then I'll see you there.

I'm also aware that the Spoken Language study unit for Lang / Lit classes is due to begin as soon as the Creative Writing is finished, and will endeavour to shape all the guidance we've had about this unit into something approaching a SOW this week.

GCSE Textbooks

We've had a delivery of textbooks aimed at the new GCSE courses. Toni will be processing these this week, but I will leave a selection on the table in C28 for you to have a look at.

Other Stuff!

Video / Macs

We also finally got the new Macs up and running, alongside 6 video cameras. This is good quality kit that actually works, so the prospect of making films with students has become areal possibility, without the technical hassle this has involved in the past. Please let me know if you'd like to have a go - the iMovie software on the Macs is brilliant and dead easy once you get the hang of it!

Registers
Just a plea to make sure registers are completed and submitted for all lessons - as a department we are pretty good on this, but it's a real cause for concern for Val and the attendance team when we forget.

Department Support / Detentions
Please use the dept support timetable produced by Toni - am in the process of filling the gaps, but in the meantime, use myself or Jamie as support for KS3 / 4.

If a student is sent to dept support, they should be detained by the class teacher in the first instance. If there are repeated difficulties, or they don't turn up, please let Toni know and she will arrange a department lunchtime detention.


One-to-One Tuition
If you are interested in taking on students for paid one-to-one tuition this year (£25 per hour, usually one student = one hour per week), please let me know.

Thanks everyone and have a great week,

Tom

Hi all,

Well, after a summer that did seem to fly by somewhat, here we go again for Cheney 2010-2011! Hope everyone has a great start to term.

INSET 2010
Thanks to all for your contributions to the INSET days at the beginning of the year. As usual, I think we worked well as a team, made progress on some important issues. I've summarised here the main action points which came out of the days:
- TBo to review the Success Criteria in order to simplify and clarify the wording
- TBo to put a booklet together to include success criteria for all KS3 assessment, including space for students to record their progress and achievements
- JKy to organise data collection for GCSE coursework from current year 11 in the first instance, followed by similar for current year 10s
- ALL - work on developing Agile Teaching in own practice. All units at KS3 to include a mid-term formative assessment task with resources from this shared electronically
As well as this, I think it would be interesting to share what areas of Agile Teaching we've individually decided to work on through the TLC structure (mine is asking better questions, specifically relating to teaching the novel with year 11). If people don't mind, please send me an email explaining your focus, or just tell me!

Performance Management
Phil has asked me to remind you about the performance management day which is coming up in October. Whilst we will all receive data analysis of our classes prior to the day, there is also the opportunity to collect other data, eg comments from colleagues or student feedback. If you are interested in the latter, please see the class survey below which I am doing with my year 11s (more for the purpose of getting them to reflect on their English last year than for performance management); if you would like to do something similar it is very easy to sort out so just let me know.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2CBH6VF

Blogs
Equally, if you would like to run a blog for your class or classes this year and need any help setting one up, please let me know. Here's an example of mine from last year : http://www.cheneyenglish10x4.blogspot.com/ , and I would have to emphasise the value of doing this in terms of parental and student engagement, alongside student accountability for their work.

One to One
Liz and I both took part in the 1-to-1 summer school and really enjoyed it. If you would like to take some 1-to-1 this year, please let me know - it is paid at £25 per hour, and for subject specialists, will not represent a significant workload in terms of planning and assessment.

Masters
Something that no-doubt will create a significant workload, however, is the Masters programme - see Phil Waters if you are interested in taking this up (the final year in which taking part will be subsidised).

Department Support
I hope to get the department support programme out ASAP - in the meantime, please use:

- Monday -JKy, 4 Pat, 5 Pat
- Tues - 1 Liz, 2 Jamie, 3 Pat, 4 Pat, 5 Nicky

Thanks everyone,
Tom

End of Term Bulletin!

Well, here we are again, looking back at another year's hard work and looking forward to a well-deserved six weeks of relaxation and summer fun! That's the plan anyway. As ever, thank you all for the work, creativity and fun that you've brought to the team and to our students this year... Also, very fond and sad goodbyes to Ella and Portia and particular thanks for terrific contributions you've made.

Congratulations also to Jamie for his appointment as leader for KS4, and good luck to Liz on her new role - we all know that you will be an amazing College Leader!

Particular thanks also to all of the KS4 team, for the positivity, preparation and energy you brought to the recent GCSE preparation day - our students will be in safe hands.

Timetables

- timetables will be arriving imminently (fingers crossed!) - thanks for your patience on this and be assured that those responsible are working intensively to get it sorted.

Dept Do

Meet at the Duke of Cambridge on Little Clarendon St from 7 on Tues eve...

Have a wonderful summer everyone!

Tom

Bulletin - 18th June 2010

Hi all,

This week -

Meeting on Tues

C26

3.15 - 4.15

This meeting will be an opportunity for collaborative planning for the new GCSE, thinking ahead to the away-day on the 13th July. Please bring along any materials that you have already begun working on, as well as any questions that you have!

Toni
Toni Gaughan starts with us to provide much needed admin assistance from Monday. She will be with us on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, making a total of 12 hours per week. Please pop in and introduce yourselves, and obviously any letters, detention info or other admin tasks can now be directed through her. Phew!

English interviews on Tuesday
- we have four candidates for interview, and they will be in the English office at break time for tea and biscuits - you would all be very welcome to come along and meet them (no blueberry muffins this time; don't blame me, blame the change in government!).

TBO out on Weds at LT away-day

Thanks everyone!

Tom

Bulletin - 21st June

Hi all,

Many thanks to everyone for your contributions to the INSET day on Friday; it felt like a really purposeful day and we covered a lot of good stuff! I've tried to summarise views about the issue of reporting to parents and will send this around for you to add to or comment on if you would like to.

Admin Assistant

Rejoice! We have an Admin Assistant - all things being well (!), Toni will be starting work with us from next Monday.

Drama Staffing

Kate has asked us to provide four periods of Drama (KS3 I presume) - if you are keen to try this, please let me know ASAP.

Year 9 Assessment

Creative Writing Controlled Assessment

An overview of the specific requirements for this unit is found on page 16 of the specification here: http://store.aqa.org.uk/resourceZone/pdf/english/AQA-4705-W-SP.PDF

The marking criteria are on pages 38 and 39. I will print these out and photocopy; I've also ordered more specs from the board so you should get one ASAP.

The marking works like this:

Each creative writing task is marked out of 10. Students have to submit two, so they get a mark out of 20 for content. They then get a mark out of 10 for accuracy, which comes from looking at both tasks. I suggest therefore that we:

- use the criteria to give a content mark out of 10

- also give and record an accuracy mark for this piece of work

- the accuracy mark can then be adjusted later in the course when they do the second piece of writing.

For full guidance on Controlled Assessment in English, please see the document here: http://store.aqa.org.uk/resourceZone/pdf/english/AQA-ENG-ALL-W-TRB-CASSI.PDF

PLTS

Further to our discussion of the Personal Learning and Thinking Skills framework on Friday, here's the link to a site with ideas about how PLTS can be applied to English: http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/subjects/key-stage-4/english/PLTS-in-English/index.aspx

National Curriculum Level Descriptors

On Friday, we agreed that we would use the general level descriptors for Reading, Writing and S and L to decide on end of unit grades (alongside the focused APP mid-term formative assessment points). This link takes you to a document which clarifies these descriptors, which have been recently revised: http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/uploads/Level_descriptors_English_tcm8-16283.pdf

Have a great week everyone,

Tom

Bulletin - 14th June

Hi all...welcome to the redesigned bulletin!

This week,

Lots going on this week, notably:
Netherlands vs. Denmark
Japan vs. Cameroon
Italy vs. Paraguay
New Zealand vs. Slovakia
Côte d’Ivoire vs. Portugal
Brazil vs. North Korea

Also, Year 10 Parents Evening on Thurs
Tues - Danni Quin in the department p1-4, observing and TA-ing as required.
TBo and EWa out on Weds at HODs conference.
Fri - Agile Teaching focused INSET Day

Thanks to all who've responded to the email regarding gained time and GCSE prep - I will be in touch very soon to confirm which colleagues have opted to work on which part of the course.
Have a great week everyone,
Tom

Bulletin - 8th June

Welcome back everyone, and I hope you had a wonderful, well-deserved break.

OFSTED

First of all, a massive thank you and well done to everyone for the effort that went into the OFSTED inspection before the break. I have seen a sneak preview of the report (I believe it will be amade available to all staff very soon) and they have picked up on a number of strengths in our subject, including student achievement and the quality of our use of assessment. This is really great news, and puts into focus the fact that we are a strong and effective team, which is highly successful in the difficult job of helping our students to learn (starting to sound like an OFSTED report now!). But it's true. Well done everyone and thank you for all the hard work and professionalism you all bring to the job.

This Term

There is a lot to do this term! I will be in touch ASAP with a run-down of what needs to be done, but obviously preparing for the new syllabus at KS4 will be a major focus. I may ask individuals or pairs to look at particular parts of the course, and will be in touch about this very soon - also Liz and I are meeting today to clarify the plan for year 9.

Party

As you may know I am something of an indefatigable party animal, as long as I am able to be in bed with a book by ten pm. With this in mind, you are all invited to a summer garden / drinks and nibbles party on the afternoon of Saturday July 17th at my house, directions to which I will send around. My wife is completing her GTP course imminently and is inviting the Eng department from Cherwell to celebrate, so if you are free and fancy it, do put it in your diaries! (More of a wine sharing than a best-practice sharing opportunity I would have thought!).

Have a great week everyone!

Tom

Bulletin - 24th May 2010

Hi all,

First Story
First of all, thanks to Jamie and Liz for all the work that's gone into the First Story project, culminating in a highly enjoyable book launch event on Weds. It looks like we can get the funding to run First Story again next year, so do have a think if there are any current year 10, 11 or 12 students who you think would enjoy it.

Year 11
Thanks to all of you who've put so much time and effort into our Year 11 students, particularly in getting the coursework sorted and (finally) sent off! Fingers crossed for Tuesday's Lit exam, and I'll be in touch about the Enrichment Day activities for the first week of next term.
Also, I know this is a busy time, but it would be worth finding time this week to check that your tiers of entry are correct for the Lang exam - Jo has put the entries in the shared area. I have had some kids saying they want to change from F to H - problem is this costs £26 per time so can only be allowed for genuine mistakes or deserving cases.

OFSTED
Thirdly, you may have heard that we have OFSTED on Tues and Weds, and any of our lessons could be observed at any time. I'll email around the latest guidance given to inspectors about observing lessons, but the main features of excellent learning are:
- clear, focused learning intentions and activities which promote learning rather than simply task-completion
- clear success criteria; when completing a task, students should be aware of what success will look like
- differentiation (eg through the success criteria)
- high levels of student engagement and participation

In the meantime, please do ask if you have any specific questions about the process (not that I'm claiming to know the answers!). I would advise talking to students on Monday to remind them of targets and development points that you've suggested to them over the course of the year so far. It's possible that a sample of work will be asked for; this is much more likely to be from an individual student than a whole group, but if you know there are gaps in book or folder marking, it would obviously be best to fill these if at all possible.

Finally, MST has sent around some data sheets for KS3, showing the data that we've put in alongside their predicted grades - it might be worth having a look at this (much easier than trawling through SERCO).

I know that these are all things that we have been working on, so I hope it goes well for everybody; it'll be over in a flash!

Have a great week - it looks like it will be boiling on Monday and then cooler on Tues / Weds, so that's good news.
Tom

Bulletin 10th May

Hi all,
This week:
- Mon - we've been invited to break with the Drama interviewees - see KH's email and turn up to the staffroom at break time if you can.
- Tues - Hill End Day- TBo / EWa / NTu are taking a group of students to Hill End for revision on Tuesday (NOT Weds as advertised in last week's bulletin!). It was supposed to be C/Ders, but I've just found out that it is Asset exam day, so that puts a massive spanner in the works. So we need more names - please pass on to me the names of any students from your Year 11 classes who you think are in danger of underachievement ASAP please, and we'll make it a general booster day rather than a specifically CD day!
- TBo out on Weds at GCSE English 2010 preparation INSET
- Tues - whole -staff meeting after school on BSF (Portia and Jamie - I've asked if you can miss this in order to complete the AS moderation - I'll let you know if this turns out to be a problem).

Half Term Revision Days
Jolie has again offered to pay staff to come in to do revision sessions in the half term holiday, If you are interested in running a session (Eng Lang or Media Studies) please let ne know ASAP.

Moderation
Many thanks everyone for your efforts on Tuesday to moderate the GCSE English coursework, and also to the Media team for the work that went into moderating and sorting coursework on Friday's moderation day - we are nearly there!
Have a great week,
Tom

Bulletin - 4th May 2010

Hi all,

First of all, who's up for a department trip to Wembley with Oxford United? Secondly ...

Meeting - URGENT!

We have a meeting tonight, and I'd like to propose that we spend it moderating GCSE coursework folders. We are in a difficult situation with moderation this year, due largely to the volcanic disruption, but also due to the fact that we have have seven separate coursework elements to moderate, and only nine staff to do so! My suggestion is as follows:

- all GCSE teachers bring a selection of their folders along - shall we say 5 per teacher, representing the range of ability in each class.

- we work in small groups, sample moderating each other's marking

- we look for and identify patterns - if any particular unit or piece seems to be over / under marked, that teacher can then go back and adjust their marks accordingly. Any moderation issues that are not resolved by the end of the hour can be dealt with by me after the meeting.

This isn't the ideal way to do things I know, but it has the distinct advantage of allowing us all to moderate at the same time, and Gill Barnes has said that sample moderation is fine. I'm aware that this gives staff little notice, but hopefully folders will be ready by now. If this causes problems for anyone, do let me know ASAP!

Hill End - Weds 11th May

The Hill End C/D revision day will take place next Weds. At present, I am inviting all students who were given a D on the most recent report. However, if you are aware that you have given a C grade to a particular student but think they really need the extra input, let me know and I'll see if I can get them in as well.

Accompanying staff will be EWa, JKy, TBo (as last year) - no particular reason for this other than these staff have got it all planned and ready to go - I know that any of the GCSE team would deliver a great job!

Year 10 Exams

Please refer to email from last week re. Year 10 exams. Please let me know how many papers of each tier you need - there may well have to be some sharing, but we are doing the Big Heat one from 2008. I would like to collect marks for this in the same way as with the Year 11 mocks and will be sending around Excel docs accordingly. I'm also keen to make the feedback process as formative as poss, so will send around an approach I used with year 11 - this involves not writing the marks on the paper, but giving students a simplified mark scheme. They then self/peer mark before being given the teacher marks separately, which hopefully helps them to learn more from the feedback process. I did intend to go over the details of this in the meeting but won't have time due to moderation, so look out for an email with full instructions!

Admin Assistant

It has been confirmed that Toni Gaughan will be our Admin assistant from after half-term, giving us 12 hours of support per-fortnight. She currently works with History and Geography and comes highly recommended, so we can look forward to welcoming her to the department in the near future. In the meantime, a reminder that detention requests need to come directly to me, and it is the teacher's responsibility to make sure that the student knows when and where the detention takes place; I'm not able to provide reminders and what-not as Heather used to!

Finally, thanks and well done to Pat and the A Level Lit team for running a successful and productive moderation last week. Oh, and thanks to everyone for the work that went into preparing and delivering what seemed to be a very successful and enjoyable enrichment day on Weds... is it just me or is it all looking a bit busy at the moment?! AND there's an election!

Have a great week everyone,

Tom

Bulletin - 26th April

Hi all,
This week:
As far as I am aware we are moderating tomorrow, in the Community Hall as planned. I'll let you know if I hear anything different! Please refer to requests on previous bulletin - PHa will be working with TBo / EWa in the morning on GCSE Media, and pm with TBo on Year 13 Media.

Enrichment Day
Oxford Trip (Leave at 9, return by 12.30-1, period 5 spent with the rest of the year group in the Assembly Hall) TBo, NTu, CSw
Trip to All Saints EWa, EFr, +TA
Hope this OK -let me know if any problems.

Year 8 Work Scrutiny
Thanks to all who provided work for the Year 8 scrutiny - I'm in the process of writing this up and will circulate ASAP. The books are in my room and I'll give them back before school on Monday.

Reports
Year 11 and Year 7 reports are due into SERCO ASAP please.
Have a fab week everyone!
Tom

Bulletin - 19th April 2010

Hi all,

Welcome back everyone (assuming no-one is stuck in a foreign airport!). Hope you enjoyed the break and the turn for the better in the weather - it's going to be another super-busy term, particularly for exam classes, but the end is nigh! Thanks to all fof you for the hard work that is going into supporting our students with their learning at all levels this term.

Moderation Arrangements 2010

Moderation for GCSE and A Level coursework will take place this Weds. Arrangements are as follows:
- I have asked to use the Community Hall as per last year - I'm waiting for confirmation that this is OK and will let you know.

GCSE and A Level teaching staff - please bring along:

- A Level Coursework as appropriate

- GCSE folders with marks clearly shown for EN2 and 3. It is not necessary to fill in written details for En1 tasks or for Oral Responses at this stage, but this will obviously be required should folders be called by the exam board.

- Copies of marking criteria

KS5 Lit:

- PTO / AW / GSn / JKy

GCSE Media Studies

- Tbo / Ewa on GCSE Media (am)

GCSE English and English Lit

JD / CSw / Ntu + TBo and EWa (pm)

Work Scrutiny
I would like to conduct a Year 8 work scrutiny over the next week, along the lines of the Year 9 scrutiny which we did during the department review. Could I therefore ask everyone who teaches year 8 to provide me with a book and assessment folder for one top, one middle and onebottom ability student from your year 8 classes by Friday please, and I'll aim to get it done over the weekend.

Folders / Books

A reminder - please ensure that students books and folders are kept graffiti-free. My approach is to provide a replacement folder on one occasion (ie if they draw on it once they can have another one along with a reminder) but to issue detentions beyond this.

Coping Without Heather!

Now that Heather is no longer here, could all requests for students to be detained be passed directly to me please. The post has been advertised but it will be a while before it is filled I imagine.

Year 9 Teaching

One of the issues which came out of our last meeting was to decide what would be most appropriate for Year 9 teaching this summer, given that the syllabus for 2010 has changed. This puts us in a funny situation really as we want to prepare the students for their GCSE course, but haven't yet planned the course through thoroughly. We also need to ensure that we are in a position to provide accurate TA levels at the end of the year.

At the moment, AQA are saying that they have released the Controlled Assessment tasks for next year, but I cannot find them on their website - I've therefore contacted the board and will be able to make more concrete suggestions as soon as I find out what the coursework tasks are. The thinking is to complete a S and L and a written controlled assessment coursework task (poss media or creative writing) - Liz and I will get on this ASAP. In the meantime, please continue to work within the existing framework for year 9.

Thanks everyone and have a wonderful week.

Tom

Bulletin - 22nd March

Hello all,

This week:
Meeting in C26
Tuesday
3.15 - 4.15
Agenda:
Single Item:
Agile Teaching and Assessment at Key Stage 3

Meeting
The meeting on Tues will reflect on our response to the recent changes at KS3, and we will be looking to review and monitor the implementation of the assessment policy which was formed at the end of last year. Please come along with thoughts and ideas on successes and challenges, and how we might evolve our practice from here.

GCSE Coursework:
We have less than two weeks to ensure that all coursework is in and that every folder is complete. Thanks for all your work on this, especially where the students are proving tricky but please keep trying - phone home, put students in department support to complete work, get them back after school etc etc. We had an unacceptable number of incomplete folders last year and this definitely had an impact on our students' achievement overall; SLT are keen to support us on getting everything in. Let me know if there are any students who you remain seriously concerned about getting work in from, and remember that the Coursework Gaps booklet is available for Lang / Lit folders where the students are missing work.

GCSE Easter Sessions
Sorry about the confusion regarding GCSE revision sessions last week - I've asked for all names to be taken off the letter going to parents but would appreciate if you could confirm the following:
- Are you interested in taking a revision session on either the Weds, Thurs or Fri of the Easter hols?
- If so, what days?
The detail I have is that the sessions will take place between 10 and 3 (presumably with a break for lunch, and will be paid at £35 per hour. Other than that, it's up to us who we aim it at - I would suggest some differentiated groups looking at different parts of the exam paper to save on planning, rather than having the same kids in each day. This has cropped up as a very late but valuable opportunity for us to do some small-group intervention, so please let me know if you are happy to be involved.

First Story
I believe that Liz and Jamie are taking some students to Christ Church on Tues after school for a debate - thanks for sorting it and please let us know how they get on!

Question of Words
Thanks to Pat, Lizzie and Catherine for taking our students to the Question of Words event at the Playhouse on Weds, where we will avenge last year's narrow defeat by Cherwell!

Have a wonderful week!
Tom

Bulletin - 8th March

Hello everyone!

This Week:

No formal meeting this week as LP / College Leader meetings.

A Question of Words

This event has crept up on me a little bit - it's happening on Thursday so I need to sort out 16 students from each of years 7, 8, 9 and 10 to take part in this event. Could you please send me some names - we are looking for students who will be reasonably confident when devising and performing poems / sketches. Thanks and sorry for the rush, but ASAP please - we were just beaten by Cherwell last year so revenge is needed! See flyer on email for details.

Department Meeting Next Tues
This meeting will be dedicated to refreshing and reflecting on the implementation of our assessment policy, with emphasis on KS3. If staff are able to come to the meeting having thought about this beforehand - what is going well, what do we need to work on - that will be helpful.

GCSE sessions
GCSE booster sessions are beginning this week (I haven't got the sheet with me but I think I said Tues lunch and Weds after school - I'll send them round again to confirm). Anyway, whenever they are, please encourage kids to turn up, and direct individuals to sessions revising aspects of the exams that they need to improve on.

Year 7 Writers
Please see email from MJo regarding the Creative Junction writing project, and pass on names of keen Year 7 writers to her.

Aldyth
Aldyth leaves the department this week to take on extra drama lessons - thanks for all your hard work with year 8!
Thanks everyone and have a wonderful week!
Tom

Bulletin - 22nd Feb

Welcome back everyone!

This week:
- Thursday: OFSTED briefing in Hall after school

This term:

Exams
Thanks in advance for all the work that will go into prepaing exam classes in this crucial term. A couple of points to keep in mind:

- Booster sessions
Please see the timetable of lunch and after-school sessions for this term, and encourage students to attend. I've tried to make the lunch sessions in particular very much skills-based, so this might be an opportunity to re-engage students with their mock exam feedback and focus on what skills they need to work on.

- Coursework
A reminder that coursework was a weakness in our students’ performance last year, with a significant difference in the performance of our students compared with similar centres. Therefore, thanks for ensuring that coursework is completed to a high standard and that any outstanding gaps are filled. Feel free to use the computers in C5 for this purpose if you have students needing to write work up, and see the booster / coursework session timetable for catch-up sessions after school.

I’ve also put together and emailed round a booklet of catch-up tasks for Lang / Lit which students can use if they have missed tasks entirely. It’s difficult to provide access to the top grades, particularly in the EN2 / Lit tasks, but it’s much better that students can produce something rather than having incomplete folders.

Thanks and have a fab week,

Tom

Bulletin - 8th February

Hi all,
OK - one week to go until a rest! Here's what's going on:

Tuesday - Department Meeting
C26
3.15-4.15
Single Item Agenda:
GCSE: this year and beyond!

Year 11 Predictions
Thanks for getting the predicted grades for Year 11 back to me ASAP this week - sheets in your pigeon holes for this.

That's it!
Have a good week,
Tom

Bulletin - 1st Feb 2010

Hi everyone,

Thanks for everyone's hard work at a well-attended year 11 PCE last week - year 9 get their chance this Thursday.

I accidentally deleted all the emails that I received on Thursday of last week, and have been left with a series of nagging doubts about things I may not have replied to you - if you have enmailed me and not got a reply, can you send it through again please!

Money!

I have just put in a substantial bid for Media equipment through the Harnessing Technology Grant. It now transpires that school has some other money available, and we are in a position to put in a bid for 'major items, that we would not usually be able to buy'. I have some ideas on this - poss laptops, staff jacuzzi, waterproof laptops for use in said jacuzzi - but if anyone else has any thoughts, let me know. Pat - possibly an opportunity to get the little room sorted?

Useful S and L Website
This is a great site recommended by Tom Lee - loads of thought-provoking examples of public speaking: http://www.ted.com/ - this is a particularly interesting example about creativity in schools: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html . Loads of really good examples of persuasive / informative stuff here.


Year 11
As the summer exams approach, we will be using the following strategies to support year 11 this year.
- Tutor-time mentoring of targeted groups and individuals
- a repeat of the day at Hill End
- Booster sessions after school
- continued high quality teaching in lessons!

This broadly follows the pattern from last year, although we need to extend the intervention provision by catering for other borderline areas as well ast the C/D, and also more emphasis on intervention in Literature. If anyone has any ideas about other strategies we can use to support the performance of our students this year, please let me know. In the meantime, please let me know of any students who are not up to date with coursework. I am available in C5 to run catch-up coursework sessions every Wednesday after school, so please send students along.

Feedback from EN1 Advisory meeting
Thanks to all for sorting out EN1 records in preparation for the meeting on Friday. The standardisation went well and we got ticks in all the right boxes for our record keeping and task-setting, so all good there. However, the following points did come out in the discussion:

- Record Keeping: we are advised to aim for greater consistency in the way that staff are keeping records. I think this is a fair point and we'll look to implement this for the new syllabus. There is a lot of potential for keeping and storing these records electronically and this is something that we should look at.
- Dates: in whatever form we are currently keeping records, we need to make sure that the date of the assessment is recorded.
- Comments: comments made for record keeping should make close reference to assessment criteria
- Standardisation: we are expected to standardise our En1 judgements each year. In particular, we need to use the DVD to do this, and also I need to come in to see En1 being assessed.

Moderation: Gill suggested that we could slim down the sample of GCSE folders we moderate, and perhaps dedicate some time on moderation day to looking at S and L. Otherwise, we will have to dedicate some dept meeting time.

- Oral Response: this will no longer be an option for assessing EN2 and Lit from the next syllabus. It's encouraged in the meantime though, and remember that students have to include a brief summary of the task they did - only one paragraph is fine.


Have a wonderful week everyone!

Tom

Bulletin - 25th January 2010

First of all, apologies for the gratuitous baby pic... but he's cute isn't he! Even at 4 in the morning. Anyway ...


An Inspector Calls... EN1 Inspector Visit
The EN1 advisor is with us on Friday, so I need the following please:
- 3 current speaking and listening coursework sheets from each teacher at Year 10 or 11. In order to give an impression of consistency (ahem) I’ll ask staff to use the blue ones that some of us use – if you don’t currently use this system, then let me know and I’ll pass you three sheets. We’ll then look at this again in the summer and create a more up to date form or method of processing this information in time for use with the new syllabus.

INTERNS
A warm welcome to our two Interns – Lizzie Birkett and Catherine Hartley – hope you enjoy your stay with us!

GCSE / A Level Exam Estimates
I will need exam predictions to be completed for all Year 11 students and will send you your class list for this purpose. This is to predict the grade we think it most likely that they will achieve in the summer.

Year 11 Parents Evening
I will provide a sheet summarising each students’ exam performance for use at parents’ evening. If you would like me to include their coursework data on this, and can give me the data on Excel, feel free and I’ll merge it onto a different form.

Year 9 Options
Please take a few minutes to discuss with students the main differences between Lit / Media at some point this week. This is offered for the Yellow and Blue pathways; however if a Green pathway student is very keen on Media, please ask them to come and speak to me. I have a leaflet for students which I'll get out to you this week.
I think that's it!
Have a great week everyone,
Tom