Welcome back!

Hello everyone, and welcome back after what felt like a pretty brisk half term break and first week back!

Many thanks to Pat for organising the King Lear trip on Monday; great to see lots of staff going and I hope you all enjoy it. Also hope my wife behaves herself, and that everyone is OK with having a Cherwellian along!

EXAMS

Clearly, we are really running against the clock in terms of preparing students for the exams, and are entering a crucial time in the year.
So, some dates for the diary. We have only 5 weeks remaining this term, followed by just less than two weeks after the break before the following:

• English exams on the 16th and 18th May for Lang, and the 23rd May for Lit
• GCSE Media is on 13th June
• Media exams are on the 17th May for AS, and 16th June for A2.
• KS5 Lit exams are on the 24th May for AS, and 16th June for A2.

This gives us just over 20 hours of teaching before the exams - not a lot! Every lesson counts, so please keep working on exam skills, ensuring that students are fully aware of the requirements of the exam and their own strengths, weaknesses and personal targets. Thank you for all your work in ensuring that exam classes are thoroughly prepared.

In particular, it's essential that GCSE classes are given plenty of opportunities for exam practice, at home and in class. This is an absolute priority, and if you need help finding time for the purposes of marking and feedback, please do see me about this and we can make suitable arrangements.

COURSEWORK
Jamie and I are planning to be off timetable this Thursday in order to achieve the following:
- moderation and analysis of current coursework
- work scrutiny of mock exams
- preparation of battleground student interventions
We will therefore be in touch requesting coursework folders and mock exam papers for various students (only approx 5 from each class) - thanks for providing this.

Video Revision
Some mentoring and intervention sessions recently have seen students making excellent progress using video resources via YouTube. This seems to work well because:
- students can control the pace at which they learn, pausing and replaying key points
- external distraction is reduced through wearing headphones and the use of audio visual on the videos
Please do take the opportunity to take year 11 classes to an IT room (unfortunately the laptops don't yet allow us to access YouTube) for the students to use this resource. A good place to start is the Other Cultures videos on www.wix.com/teacherinmypocket/english (although avoid the one about Limbo), or else use the first ever Cheney School Takeaway Teacher video, available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8bIjJmS7m0 or embedded here:

Summer School

Jolie has asked us to repeat the offer that, if any member of staff would like to take a week off in July, to be replaced by a week's summer school teaching in August, she would be very happy to sanction this.

Have a fab week everyone,
Tom

Bulletin : Valentine's Special!

First of all, very sincere congratulations to Paul Waite for his appointment as a permanent English teacher on Friday. I know that I speak for the department when saying how pleased we all are at the way things have worked out!

Jamie is on paternity leave this week, so thanks to Felicity for taking his lessons.

Thanks to Pat, Felicity and Erie for coming to the Poetry Live! event on Tuesday of last week - good to see over 50 of our students there, for what was a really enjoyable and useful day.

Thanks to Corinna for sharing the Valentine's lesson - it's brilliant when a perfectly formed lesson plops into our collective inbox - thanks for this and to everyone who has shared stuff recently.

Have a great week everyone,
Tom

Bulletin - 7th February

This week:
Welcome to Erie, who is doing a GTP-type thing and will be with us for the next fortnight, observing and doing some teaching.
Thanks to Jamie for taking the First Story students to London last week for a Creative Writing workshop and to Felicity and Rebecca for getting a thriving Junior FS group going.
Tuesday: thanks to Pat and Felicity for accompanying me to Poetry Live!
Tues: Department Meeting

C26 - 3.15 - 4.15
Agenda:
1) Enrichment Day Planning
2) Sharing Best Practice: Agile Teaching
3) KS3 Review
4) AOB

- JKy will lead this meeting and I will get back from Poetry Live ASAP.

Kitchen:
A lock is currently being installed on the door to the kitchen area in C5, and all teachers will get a key. Sorry for slight layer of hassle here, but we need a secure area for bulky Media kit such as the lights.

GCSE:
Please refer to Jamie's email from last week regarding requirements for coursework moderation on Thursday, and pass the relevant folders on to me.

Thanks everyone and have a fabulous week!
Tom