Introduction
Half-term has come and gone faster than I ever imagined possible. It’s been a refreshing week – a mixture of spending time with beloved family and friends (including a cheeky spa day) alongside the inevitable weight of marking, planning and assignments. Honestly, I feel like I have worked much smarter this half-term – I have got pretty much everything I planned to do done in a much shorter amount of time – definitely a win! I have also begun to plan for my summer holiday trip around Europe with my boyfriend… it’s definitely been a motivating factor with any kind of work!
This is only going to be a brief update, as I am still on holiday mode and off to Ikea in about ten minutes (yes it counts as a day trip)!
9Y3 19thCentury Prose assignments
A slightly disappointing start to the half-term, not going to lie. It was a complete mixed bag of results but, the average grade was slightly lower than the average target grade, which is rather frustrating.
A good chunk of this comes down to one student, targeted a 6 and got a 2. In old GCSE terms that’s being predicted around a B and coming out with an F (more or less). I was completely disappointed. He had not included any contextual points at all, so I could not place him any higher. His analysis was ok, nothing spectacular – he probably would’ve got a 4 or a 5 if he was lucky – but the lack of context was detrimental. I’m not sure what happened there, but it has made me ever more vigilant – I need to ensure that he is completely clear on the assessment objectives next time. They all have a post it notes with the assessment objectives on it, plus a little message to themselves about their previous target grade – I don’t know if he lost it or if he just didn’t look at it, but clearly that method did not work for him!
On the bright side, I read 2 essays that blew me away – they were fantastic! It’s always completely reassuring to read essays that include things that I mentioned briefly – showing that differentiation can be as simple as mentioning something to a higher ability student.
That being said, this was a particularly difficult topic and I am very proud of my students; a lot of them missed out on a grade by 1 or 2 marks. They have worked very hard and have been slightly concerned about all the other classes that have been doing travel writing… luckily for them, we start travel writing on Monday!
I am also trialling a slightly different DIRT session with them. It is slightly more personalised, similar to the coded feedback I did with 8V back in p1, and my theory behind it is that it will give the students more focus with their feedback. I will comment on it next week!
EPS assignment
I am nearly there! Just need to gather the data that the teachers will (hopefully) be able to give me next week… if not I’ll be spamming questionnaires! I’ve structured my presentation and know what I am going to talk about. Let’s just hope that I actually find something useful!
Curriculums Practice assignment
The more I research into Animal Farm, the more I love it! I have got my medium-term plan finished now, with the intentions to imbed it closely (well at least the first couple of weeks for now) into the Science of Learning theory. I have to say, having a medium term plan has made my life SO much easier when it comes to planning – to have the objectives and outcomes already thought up, as well as a few activity ideas already down on paper, I am finding it more of a therapeutic copy and paste & pretty up the PowerPoint activity!
J
Currently Reading:
Poetry – So much Coleridge! My favourites this week has been Lime-tree bower my prison. I love that he has written a poem about FOMO because his wife spilled boiling milk on his foot.
Animal Farm –Whilst I technically haven’t sat and read much more than chapter 1, I have been dipping in and out for the CP assignment! I am starting to feel like I know the story pretty well – hopefully fantastically well by the end of the term!
Bleak House – Charles Dickens (ok, I may not have picked it up at all this week, but I am still ploughing on through!)
Split Second –Sophie McKenzie
Our House –Louise Candlish
Much Ado About Teaching 
Thank you for this post! I’m really pleased to hear that you had some time off over half term and that you have felt confident about managing your workload – well done you! You’re absolutely right about the wonders of a MTP too!
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