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!
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.
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
Have a wonderful week everyone!
Tom
