Parents and Carers Revision Evening - Thursday March 21st

On Thursday March 21st we are holding our annual Parents and Carers Revision Evening. This is an opportunity for parents and carers to find out how best to support Year 11 students in the run up to the exams. Full details and a booking form can be found on the SMRT website.

Boosters up until the start of study leave

Boosters for week beginning April 16th

Boosters for the rest of this week.

What students should be doing this week - w/b 9th April

Hopefully the Easter Break was an opportunity for students to really get on top of their revision. The statistics from Moodle (or Virtual Learning Environment) show that many students are making good use of our central revision area. This is the place where students can find topic lists and past papers so that they know exactly what it is they need to be revising. Unsurprisingly, the students who most need to visit this area are often the ones who don't. It is definitely worth parents and carers checking with students that they have topic lists and past papers for all of their subjects (and pointing them in the direction of Moodle if they are unable to produce them when asked!). In terms of revision, we would normally expect students to increase their revision at this point (perhaps by adding an additional session or two at weekends) or at the very maintaining the one and a half hours per night that we recommend in the revision planner.

What students should be doing this week - w/b 19th March

In this final week of term, it is vital that students make sure that they have everything they need to make the Easter Break a really useful time in terms of revision. They should make sure they are clear on exactly what to revise. The central revision area of Moodle has topic lists for most subjects. If they are unable to find what they need there, they should ask their subject teacher and if that doesn't work, speak to Mr Taylor.
Students should still be doing one full revision session per night based around our "Prepare It!", "Learn It!", "Test It!" model. Each session will probably take around one and half hours. Once the holidays begin, this should increase to 3 or 4 sessions per day.

Boosters for the last week of term

Here are the boosters for the final week of term:

Booster Programme - Week Beginning Monday 12th March

Here are this week's booster sessions (all subject to change):

Parents and Carers Revision Evening March 12th

On Monday 12th March from 7pm to 9pm we will be running our annual Revision Evening for Parents and Carers of Year 11 students. The evening starts with a talk in the hall and is then followed by a choice of workshops, listed below:

If you are interested in attending, please return the letter that was sent home with Year 11s last week or contact Mrs Bullock at the school.

Back for 2018!

It is that time of the year once again when our focus turns to revision. So to that end I am "dusting off" the revision blog for parents and carers of Year 11 students at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School with the aim of providing some additional support for those that would like it. The blog posts will consist of news and updates about our revision programme as well as links to copies of useful updates and guidance on what our expectations are as a school in terms of how much revision students should be doing at key points in the next few months.

Study Leave Programme

Sorry for the delay in posting this. Click here to download the final version of the Study Leave Booster Programme. Things got off to a great start yesterday with over 130 students in attendance. There is a big exam on Monday but students can still sign up for sessions for Periods 3,4 and 5 by coming to the library before school.

Exam Booklets and Study Leave

We had a Year 11 assembly this Monday at which students were given their exam booklet which provides detailed guidance about conduct during exams. It is worth familiarising yourself with this guidance, particularly the sections on mobile phones and electronic devices as candidates can be disqualified from an exam even if a device goes off in their pockets. Getting into good habits for the exams - for example removing labels from bottles of water - reduces stress on the day, which can only aid performance.


The students were also given details of how Study Leave works. From Friday 12th of May until half term we will be running a programme of booster sessions and supervised revision which students can sign up for each morning. It is recommended that all students attend this programme, although some students are given the choice whether or not to attend. More details, including the draft programme will be published early next week.

How much time should students be spending revising during the holidays?

Naturally this will vary for different students but we suggest that students try and complete three full revision sessions each day during the holiday. Each session should be based around the "Prepare it, learn it, test it." model and should last around an hour and a half. If students want to push themselves up to four of these sessions in a day then that's great. It is really important that students take regular breaks and take time away from revision to enjoy themselves and relax.

What should students be doing between now and the holiday?

By now, students should have planned their revision programme until at least the start of the Easter holidays, preferably using the Revision Planner they were given in assembly. Any students who are still struggling to do this should see Mr Taylor for help. At the moment we expect students to be completing at least five revision sessions per week of approximately an hour and a half per session. They should leave at least one day a week free in order to catch up on any sessions that they are unable to complete during the week. Obviously, if the students want to do more sessions at the weekend, then that's great but they should be careful not to over-do it or put themselves under too much pressure.

Science Booster Sessions Starting Next Tuesday

The following sessions will take place from 3:30 to 4:30 in C11:

Date	Topic	Teacher
Tue 21st March	B4	Miss Bayley
Tue 28th March	C5 Allotropes PPTEs	Mr Alexander and Dr Beattie
Tue 4th  April	C5 Extracting metals from their ores	Dr Archer
Mon 24th April	P4 Momentum and Forces	Mr Goldsmith
Tue 2nd May	B5 Growth and development	Dr Wilson
Tue 9th May	P5	Mr Horton

History Booster Sessions Now Correct!

Thank you to the eagle-eyed parent who noticed that the original History Booster list had me coming in during the holidays to deliver a session (I'm committed but not that committed!) I have now corrected the list and edit the post to include the correct information.

Revision Masterclass Thursday March 9th

This Thursday March 9th, I will running a revision "masterclass" for Year 11 students in TC6 from 3:30 to 4:30. This will be an opportunity for students to spend an hour focusing on developing their revision plans, with help and guidance from me. Students should bring their revision planners along and their revision strategy cards, having had a go at planning their revision themselves beforehand. Any students who missed last week's assemblies in the Library can come along to pick up a planner and a set of cards.

Geography Revision Sessions

Here are the revision sessions being run by "Team Geography" in the run up to the exams.

Resources from the Parents and Carers Revision Evening

Thanks to all the parents and carers who attended the Revision Evening on Thursday March 2nd and a huge thanks to all the teachers who gave up their time to run such great sessions. I am including some of the resources from those sessions here. Not all of the sessions used electronic resources (for example English) and some used specific websites like PE or Maths, so I have not included those sessions here, but there are lots of resources which I hope you will find useful.

The resources are all hosted by Mediafire and should be fairly straightforward to download (there is usually a big green button with "Download" on it - avoid clicking on adverts and if you are asked to install anything then don't, that isn't necessary to download these files) but if you are unsure or have problems please email me at the school.

The presentation on emotional well-being can be found here.
The materials from the Aiming for an A/8 session are in a zip file* here
The presentation for Science can be found here.
The History presentation can be found here
The RE presentation can be found here. 

Other materials will be added as I receive them.

*the materials are in a zip file as they are too large to post separately. You will need an unzipping application such as winzip (which is free for 30 days I think). Ask your child if you need help!

History Booster Programme

Below are the details of the History booster sessions that are available for students over the coming weeks: