Have your Year 11 left yet?? Ours go on Thursday (they think it’s Friday).
It’s that time of year again – have we really done all we can do or is a small part of us wishing we had another fortnight?
Before then they’ve got a Maths immersion Day, exams briefing, a Religious Studies Exam (preceded by an RS immersion morning), a Leavers service and for some of them a rude awakening in the form of a letter telling their parents that we’d like them to stay on for another two weeks. Those lucky few are our borderline pupils who are still in serious danger of not getting 5 A* - C grades.
I’ve never before encountered immersion days in the form we have them. Groups of pupils or a whole year group off-timetable to work with subject specific staff. Having a Maths one this late has annoyed quite a few other subjects, the RS one is more understandable – they come in in the morning, have some last minute guidance and then, with the memories of the morning still fresh in their mind, sit the exam.
The Maths one is more panic mode really as the thought of our 5 A*-C with English and Maths levels falling from 63% in 2006 to 55 last year and now to possibly as low as 37% is not one that we can live with.
I am feeling quite sick at the thought of my input into Key Stage 4 intervention coming to nothing, not to mention the fact that these last minute additions is stopping me from getting on with all the other jobs that I have to do (finalising options and the whole school timetable to name but two).
Well, I’ll spend all day Monday teaching Maths and then dealing with indignant pupils asking why they’re so special that they have to say on at school?
packing it in
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Packing it in
Submitted by Mrs OC on 10 May 2008
Posted in: Balancing Act
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study leave
Submitted by Libby Reid on Fri, 2008-05-16 15:53.
I think that your students are very lucky to have the opportunity to stay at school for extra coaching. They may not appreciate it now, but that would just indicate that they weren't planning on spending their study leave studying!
I do feel it's rather sad though that there is all this special attention going to those on the D/C borderline. Not a criticism - I did the same myself when I was Head of Dept - but it is so wrong that Government objectives mean that one group of children gets extra attention. What about those who are E/D borderline or C/B?
Personally, I would stop study leave altogether. It would be interesting to know what percentage of children make the most of having the time to revise and what percentage either don't start their revision early enough because they think they have a couple of weeks off school before the exams or never intend to revise in this time anyway, but prefer to sit out in the wonderful sunny(?!) weather we are enjoying?
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Every child matters - do these matter more than most?
I understand what you mean about the D/C borderline kids getting special atetntion. We also have a Gifted and Talented strand and SEN strand but we felt either that the G&Ts could revise at home or that the SENCo could support the pupils with SEN in other ways,
I have a phrase that pays - Changing a D to a C (well changing 5 Ds into 5Cs) makes a difference to a pupil's life chances (coincidentally as well as our league tables) in a way that changing an E to a D or changing a C into a B doesn't.
That's why we have a whole school approach to helping as many pupils get their 5 Cs as possible. Maybe it's just a cop-out phrase that helps me sleep at night!