I’m gonna start with an update … and apologies for the inevitable way that this will sound self-congratulatory but I wanted to say thank you to everyone that sent me luck and wishes in sitting the new GCSE … if you haven’t heard I got a 9! Just in case you think this means that I “robbed” a student of getting a 9 … I haven’t as I was excluded from the grading exercise based on my age, as were several other teachers that also sat it this year … a few got in touch so I know I’m not as weird as everyone seems to think I am by wanting to sit the papers.  Much of the rationale came from wanting to show some solidarity with the first group doing the paper but some of it (I must admit) came from wanting to prove to myself that I could do it because much was made of how difficult it was going to be – when asked by students my stock answer was “just because I can! But the main reason is to show how much work I will be putting into my revision … even a maths teacher can’t just ruck up to the exam without doing some (lots) prep!”. To be honest I loved the whole process … you know how students come along to your classroom straight after the exams (they know they shouldn’t but they do … even when you’re teaching!) and discuss how they did on each question? It was fab to be able to a real part of those discussions about what answers I’d put and I’m positive that two particular students enjoyed pointing out my wrong answers a couple of times on “easy” questions … doh!! I genuinely enjoyed the process and am toying with the idea of doing the new A level in 2019! … for some reason I may also have agreed to sit GCSE English with my goddaughter in 2 years time … I must have been very drunk when I agreed to that. Could’ve been worse I suppose … she is studying Spanish!
It wasn’t just me personally that did well though – as a school, Alcester Academy did exceptionally well overall …. again! We beat the previous record that was set two years ago!
In terms of Maths we think we got the tiering decisions “just right” and there were no negative surprises … they were all very very positive. I have to say that the gaffer was very chilled about how far we were from predictions but it was impossible to predict any grade, for any student with any level of confidence I was even joking on my travels that we’d be lucky to get 1 grade 9 and there was no guarantee that it would be mine … in fact we got quite a few more! The summary from the local press makes excellent reading … I hate to go on about the results but (I’m going to anyway!) there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears this year … the students rose to the challenge and worked so hard! 
Anyway, this week marks the end of a chapter on a number of fronts. I start my new job in the morning and I am genuinely excited at the prospect. A couple of inset days and then teaching on Wednesday … I cannot wait! Bag is packed and clothes laid out ready for the morning! Back to being a newbie!!
We are also about to make some changes to the main website and also to JustMaths Online – we originally set out to share what we were doing in our classrooms 4 years ago and this was a set of resources based around key topics – myself and Seager have always taught what most schools would’ve called their C/D borderline groups and we’ve learnt that when it comes to year 11 with these type of students the support needs to be targeted. At the time our practice was based around “the Top 40” but expanded into “the Big Fat 50” to support the 9-1 GCSE and then “the Super 60”. Over the last twelve months with the uncertainty surrounding the tier of entry for our 3/4/5 students we’ve focussed on the “crossover” topics that are likely to appear on both tiers [and based on my experience of sitting the papers too … they’re topics that “top – end” students will lose “silly marks” on too!!] and so we’re changing the support (videos/teaching resources etc) to “The JustMaths Crossover” … a core 74 (ish! but may change over time) topics supported on either side by resources for “working towards” and “working above” so as not to lose the good stuff we’ve produced previously that may not be a crossover topic … so if you’re part of the JustMaths family you WILL NOTICE some changes to JMOnline at some point next week … I’m meeting the “boys” to agree when we press the button!! All very exciting. I will email out to our JM’ers when we’re going live so if I don’t have your HOD’s email address because there’s been some changes please get in touch and I will update our records!!
On that note … time for bed!! Here’s hoping you all have a fab first week back .. enjoy!
TOP TIP FOR LAST NIGHT OF THE HOLS … Make a note for next holiday!! get out of bed in the morning and put clean bed linen on … I’ve been looking forward to fresh sheets (oohhh) all day and almost guarantees an early night x
