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