Bulletin - 24th May 2011

Hi all,

First of all, a massive thanks and well done to everyone for the efforts that have gone in to preparing our exam classes. The students seem confident and have clearly been expertly guided; now it's fingers crossed that they do themselves proud!

Department Meeting
Tuesday 24th May
C26
3.15 - 4.15

1) Homework
2) GCSE - overview of progress, issues and next steps

Thanks everyone,
Tom

Bulletin 9th May

Hi all,

Welcome back to the first five-day week for what seems like an age! How will we cope!

A big thanks for all the effort that's gone into teaching, sorting out and administrating the coursework this year. GCSE has been sent off - the end of an era! - , and A Level will go at the end of this week.

Thanks to Jamie for sorting out Tuesday's C/D borderline 'All-you-can-eat' Takeaway Teacher buffet... (5000 hits on our videos on TT by the way!).

Year 9

By the end of this year, Y9 should have achieved the following:

1) Completed the individual presentation Speaking and Listening for GCSE. In the past, most classes have undertaken the Room 101 task, but there is no set way in to this, so please feel free to be creative if there are other alternatives - Julie's approach of asking the students to present an 'object of significance' comes highly recommended.

2) Completed one controlled assessment task from the 'Commisions' column of the English Language spec. This means the 'Change' piece, or the 'Don't get me started on...', but not one from another column please, as this will cause problems in year 10.

3) Completed an end of Y9 Reading test - this comes in half way through Term 6, will involve a SATS reading paper, and I will provide more info and guidance on this nearer the time. The idea is not that lots of direct preparation occurs prior to the event, however, but more that we are able to get a snapshot of their reading ability at the end of their KS3 experience. There will be no skills tested that haven't been addressed somewhere at KS3.

See me if any problems or issues with this.

Reading Books

Good to see that classes are using the reading books in Paul's room. Can I send a plea that the books don't go home, and that the sets of 4 are maintained? There are a couple of sets where one of the books is no longer there, and it's important that we don't start leaking books - the idea is that we can capitalise on the social element of reading by encouraging groups of students to read the same books - if any spare copies could be returned that would be great. It's also probably worth checking with PWa if it's appropriate before sending students in during the middle of a lesson.

Thanks everyone and have a wonderful week,

Tom

Bulletin - 2nd May

Hi all,

Welcome back Liz!

Right, this week:

Department Meeting - Tues 3.15 - 4.15

- A Level English Teachers meeting with PTo in C23

- Year 11 Teachers meeting in C26 to fill in coursework cover sheets (see email from JKy)

- Remaining Colleagues - planning and preparation time

Exam Classes

Thanks to all for the continued work with our exam classes - we are nearly there. This year has been a real challenge with the sheer weight and volume of assessment on our shoulders - not long now until a bit of respite!

Takeaway Teacher

TT now has a Media Studies Channel, on www.youtube.com/user/cheneytakeawaymedia . Some useful stuff here for GCSE and AS / A2 - please do have a look and direct students to where appropriate. We've also had over 4000 hits now on the English site - I've added a load of videos over the holidays, eg videos on how to plan for the OMAM question, and how to achieve the A* in Lang and Lit. Please feel free to take classes / use the netbooks to access this resource. Also, if there are any teaching points that would really benefit your students, please let me know.

Books

We have received a substantial number of books from Amazon - they are currently stored on the shelves at the back of C2. The books are in sets of 4 or 8 and are intended for:

- use for class Reading Weeks as discussed in dept meeting - feel free to pilot this with KS3 classes, and we'll aim to get a proper schedule / approach clarified in the summer.

- use as an alternative to the class novel for teaching the Shared Text units

Please don't send these books home with students!

Thanks everyone,

Tom