The Extra 5%

Did you know that students are awarded 5% of their marks in History, RE, Geography and English Literature for the quality of their spelling, punctuation and grammar? These SPaG marks, as they are often called, can prove the difference between two grades. With that in mind we run a course called the Extra 5% which is designed to teach students some of the main things they will need to know in order to improve in these areas. Students who are interested should see Mr Taylor.

Take Five Website

The Take Five website is currently down, to access the materials from the site visit Fronter instead and go to the Key Stage Four Revision Room.

What students should be doing this week (w/c 28th April)

In addition to continuing with their revision students should also be planning which days they will be attending our Study Leave Booster Programme. You can download a draft version of the programme here. Students will be told later this week whether they have qualified for Study Leave - those have have can choose which days they attend (either for a whole morning or a whole day) and can sign up for sessions before school in the library. Thise who do not qualify for study leave will be expected to attend for each day of the programme (up until half term).

What students should be doing this week (w/c April 21st)

With the holidays over students still need to keep the revision going. I would suggest that students should be doing two full revision sessions on a normal school night (unless they are attending boosters etc.). On Monday, students will be given details of our Study Leave Booster Programme via an assembly.

Resources from the Revision Evening

Thank you to all the parents and carers who came to our Revision Evening on Monday. As promised, here are some of the resources that were used on the night. You can find Mr Thurston's presentation on "Aiming for an A*" here, Mr Rowland's presentation on "Using Extra Time in Exams" is here. Mr Morrice's session on Geography is here and the Powerpoint from my session on "Effective Revision" is here.

What students should be doing this week - w/c 24th March

At present we are suggesting that students do one good revision session per night of around one and half hours, based around our model of "prepare it, learn it, test it". Obviously, students are welcome to do two sessions per night if they want or add in a couple of extras at the weekend but the important thing is to get the balance right between school work, revision and relaxation.

What students should be doing this week - w/c March 17th

This week should see the start of the students' revision programmes. All of the students have been given a copy of the planner and the revision strategy cards and should be using these to plan in detail not only what they will revise but when they will revise it and how they will revise it. We suggest the students use a three phase revision model for each revision session - prepare, learn and test. Each student should build their plan around this model and should doing one revision session of around an hour and a half (half an hour for each phase) on a normal school night.

Parents and Carers Revision Evening Monday March 24th

We will be running a revision evening for parents and carers from 7 to 9pm on Monday 24th of March. This is your opportunity to find out a range of strategies to support your children in the run up to the exam. There will be guidance on general stuff like planning revision and coping with stress and subject specific workshops too. You can download a copy of the letter with all the details here. Just fill it in and return it Mrs Bullock in the Humanities Admin. Office by Thursday of next week.

Revision Planners

This week, all Year 11 students have been given a copy of the 2014 Revision Planner and the coloured Revision Strategy Cards. We advise students that their main task for the coming week is to plan their revision really carefully using the guidance from the assembly. You can download a copy of the PowerPoint I used here and you can download a copy of the planner itself here..

The Next Few Weeks

Over the next couple of weeks we will begin to enter the period where students should be planning their revision programme and beginning to do some revision each night. The students will be meeting with me over the course of next week and will be receiving a copy of this year's revision planner and some coloured cards which they can use in conjunction with the planner to create a detailed revision programme for the period between now and the exams. Further details will appear here over the coming weeks so do visit regularly.

The Extra 5% - Improving Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar

This year there is an increased focus on students' spelling, punctuation and grammar (or SPAG as it is known), with 5% of additional marks available to those students who demonstrate their SPAG skills in RE, History, Geography and English Literature. To help students to develop these skills, Mr Taylor and Mr Boswell have been running a course called "The Extra 5%". The course consists of two sessions per week: the first looks at SPAG skills using examples from RE, History or Geography; the second session develops these skills using examples from English Literacture. Around 20 students have attended the course, but for those who have not I am making the resources available in the form of the booklets for History, Geography and R.E. as well as the Powerpoint presentation which contains the answers. This means students can use these resources at home and that parents and carers can gain an overview of the sorts of skills that students need to get these extra marks in their GCSE subjects. You can click on the links above and then download them from Mediafire where the files are stored. I will post the second and third units of the course over the next couple of weeks.