Just a quickie … busy, busy, busy …

We’re on the home run with year 11, but we’ve already started reflecting on what went well and what we need to refine from September and post the GCSE exam is a good time to introduce new routines to embed them prior to the start of the year. One of the things we’ve thought long and hard about is how to ensure that students have the prior knowledge that they need when we introduce new topics and this is even more important given that we are working with effectively two schemes of work as the new GCSE kicks in for year 9. We have tried to ensure that we will cover all the pre-requisite Key Stage 3 knowledge – they are one of the generations that are caught up in the shift in content downwards – but there may be occasions when something has slipped through the net … so I want a “Plan B”.

As a result, I’ve been working on a “boarding pass” style slip/worksheet (3 to a sheet) which for each topic has some basic prior knowledge questions to ensure that this is in place before we plough on with a new topic. Still a work in progress in terms of layout/colours/fonts etc but I want it to be a bit gimmicky – I’ve done one for “interior and exterior angles of polygons” and the idea is that (as a minimum) there will be one for each of the current Top 40 topics (and the new Big Fat 50 … more on that soon!). I’m not sure whether this will be done as a starter when doing a new topic, or as homework prior to the new topic … my gut reaction is that I’d use it at the end of a previous lesson, marking it myself to see where to pitch the start of the new topic.

Would love to know what you think …

BOARDING CARDS:

Interior and Exterior Angles – Ready for take off

Pythagoras – Ready for take off