Bulletin - 26.9.11

Hi everyone,

Another busy week coming up...

1. Wednesday 28th Sept - interviews for a new English Teacher
We will be interviewing for a replacement for Laura Wigley on Wednesday. We have six viable candidates so are hoping for a strong field and to make an excellent appointment. Details have yet to be finalised but candidates will have to teach half of a Year 7/8 lesson - we will let relevant teachers know asap so that they can plan accordingly. We will have the usual meet-the-department session during first break, so come along at 11 for refreshments and to meet the candidates (Liz, your feedback would be especially welcome here!)

2. Thursday 29th Sept - Opening Evening
Pupils will go home at 1:20 on Thursday (end of P4) so that staff can prepare for Open Evening - a free lunch will be available. The evening itself will run from 6:30 to 8:30. Time during Wednesday's department meeting will be dedicated to planning and preparation.

3. Friday 30th Sept - Performance Management INSET
Friday is off-timetable for all staff performance management reviews. All staff should have received any data that will be relevant to their review and key members of the team have receivved the relevant Blue Sky training. Exactly who will be reviewing who is yet to be decided but all details will be made available as soon as possible. If anyone has any questions, please come and ask.

4. Monday 3rd Oct - Open Morning
From 9am to 12pm, Cheney will be open to Year 6 pupils and parents. Don't feel you have to do anything special or different from your usual teaching practice (we are a strong department and I don't feel we need to 'put on a show') but be aware that people might pop their head around your door at any point in the first few lessons of the day.

Have a great week.

Morning all,

It's our first dept briefing this morning (8:20, C26) so here is just a taste of some of the things that will coming your way...

1. Dates for your diaries:

• Tues 20th: Deadline for remark requests


• Wed 21st: Double dept meeting (2pm, C26)


• Thurs 22nd: Deadline for Nov exam entry


• Thurs 22nd: Year 11 PSHE day


• Fri 23rd: Deadline for updating UCAS references


• Thurs 29th: Open Evening


• Fri 30th: Performance Management Review INSET

2. Feedback from exam boards

This has been very positive across the board, reflecting the professionalism with which we go about coursework and the accuracy of our marking/standardisation. Well done everyone:

AQA AS Media Studies: 'informative comments...a pleasure to moderate'
AQA A2 Media Studies: 'clear and supportive annotations...commendable'
AQA AS Eng Lit: 'annotations and summative comments were extremely helpful...the centre is to be commended on its moderation process...the recreative responses to 'Antigone' were superb'
AQA A2 Eng Lit: 'staff and students had clearly worked hard to produce some very individual work'
WJEC GCSE Media: 'some splendid research and planning activities...evaluations showed real insight...a pleasure to moderate, thank you'

3. Eng Dept SEF / DIP

We will discuss this in more depth in our meeting on Wednesday 21st. I am keen to get input from colleagues across the dept, so please come armed with ideas for departmental issues/priorities.

4. Year 10 data tracking

I will be sending Year 10 teachers coursework tracking documents very soon. Please use these to record coursework marks. Feel free to mark using your own personal methods and then give to Toni for final data inputting if you prefer.

5. Jan exam entry for Year 11

Please let me know students for Higher and Foundation papers asap so I can pass on to Jo Simpson.

6. Creative writing groups

We have two creative writing groups within the dept:

• First Short Story (for KS3): Tuesdays, 3:15-4:15, J39


• Sixth Form Creative Writing Group: Wednesdays, 2-3, C27

Please promote to the relevant students/classes.

Have a great week.

Bulletin - 12.9.11

Hi everyone,

So, quite an uneventful first week...

1. Laura Wigley
Thank you to everyone for your help and support in dealing with the sudden and unexpected departure of Laura Wigley on Thursday. We have Laws in as a cover teacher for the time being until we are able to source a more permenant replacement. I have set up blogs for AS Media Studies (http://www.cheneyasmedia.blogspot.com/) and A2 Media Studies (http://www.cheneya2media.blogspot.com/) that contain work for those students to follow - Liz and Andrew, please direct your Year 12s towards this. There is a folder on Staff Resources for all of Laura's other classes and Paul and I will liaise with Laws to ensure the right work is delivered to all of these students: T:\Staff Resources\English\LWI cover work

2. Timetables and Serco
Apologies for the madness over timetables, class lists, etc. Hopefully these issues are starting to be resolved (especially in Year 10 where there were a lot of problems) but if there are still students who aren't where they need to be, please let me know and I will pass on to MST. There are still quite a few issues at KS5 but hopefully these will be worked out soon as well.

3. Charlie Field
Charlie going to be volunteering work in the English Department one day a week (Thursday) from now on. I will look to put together a timetable for Charlie and work out some activities he/she can be involved in. Please let me know if there are any classes you would like help with on Thursdays or any students that could use some one-on-one help (I was thinking we could use Charlie to help with students missing coursework?)

4. Cat Hartley
Cat is a friend of Val Goff's daughter. She has just finished an English degree at Cambridge and is starting a PGCE in Oxford in September. She will be spending Thursday and Friday in the English department, observing lessons, with a specific focus on how teachers set about getting to know their classes, how students make the transition between Key Stages and the range of teaching and learning methods used in the English classroom. I will put together a programme of observations for her in the next day or two, so if there are any classes you would rather you WEREN'T observed with, please let me know.

5. Staff Tea
It's ours on 7th Oct.

6. Plums
There is a punnett of plums in the English office. They are excess allotment produce from my father-in-law. PLEASE HELP YOURSELF. Take some home, I beg you, we have thousands...

A great first week everyone, especially in light of all that has happened. Bring on Week 2!

Bulletin - 26th June 2011

Hi all,

Well - loads of exciting things happening at the moment!

First Story - many thanks to Jamie and Fliss for the work that's gone in to FS and FSS - Weds saw an absolutely brilliant launch of the new books, much enjoyed by all,

Appointment: thanks to Jamie and Alastair for the smooth and successful interview day on Friday - we look forward to welcoming Laura to the department from the 4th July.

A Question of Words: Thanks again to Fliss for sorting out the Q of A heats - our students excelled themselves by all accounts - now to the final on 7th July at the North Wall Centre - it's on from 1.15 and is usually a really enjoyable event. If anyone would like to come along, let me know.

Creative and Media Conference - 15 year 10s are out on Thursday at a Creative and Media conference at Brookes - names will be on SERCO ASAP.

Standardisation: Standardisation of year 10 coursework will take place on Weds - venue to be announced - see Jamie or me if you have any questions about the process.

Timetabling: now that staffing is finalised, we are in a position to push ahead with scheduling the timetable and hopefully get it sorted before too long.

Year 9

Year 9 reading test markschemes have gone into pigeon holes - I'll be in touch with a sheet to collect the data soon. If I could get all year 9 data in by July 15th, that will give me some time to sort sets and groupings out before the end of term - please let me know if you think this will be a problem.

Finally, here's Jamie talking students through the new GCSE English exam, to be take by our students in January - have a watch if you want to get yourself ahead of the game!

Welcome back all - hope you had a restful break. Congratulations to Jamie for his appointment as Acting HOD until Xmas 2011.

Staffing
The decisions regarding the HOD job have complicated our staffing and timetabling somewhat - an advert is going in ASAP for a main scale English teacher, with a deadline of (I think) 20th June.

Dates for this term:

10th June - Deadline for Year 10 reports
13th June - Year 12s return
16th June - Year 10 PCE
20th June - Deadline for Year 9 NC data to go into SERCO - this is an end of year level which gives an overall best fit for Year 9, broken up into separate levels for reading, writing, and S&L.
21st June - Question of Words - students needed!
24th June - English Staff Tea
29th June - Standardisation day for Year 10 GCSE coursework - details to follow.
30th June - Creative and Media conference at Brookes for 15 Year 10 Media students.

Thanks everyone!
Tom

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