What are we testing?

Ramblings of a mad woman probably but I’m trying to get my head around ways to work with our current and future cohorts to overcome issues whereby some students do this: Read the question Decide they aren’t going to be able to FINISH the question Don’t even start having a go … arggggghhhhhhh!!! I’m going to … Read more

They know that I know!

We’ve just finished our first assessment cycle (well .. one more paper to go with year 9’s tomorrow!) and we’ve done the whole RAG’ing of questions and reviewed the papers so when someone asked me last week if we re-test students it really made me think. The answer is no we don’t but I definitely … Read more

Being systematic

I love teaching my year 9 group. I’ve taught them for 2 years now and in the main, they are really up for having a go at most things I give them and they usually try their best. There are times when they’re a little loud but they are such a fun group to teach. … Read more

Summer 2016 entries

Note that any of the below data is still provisional! It’s really important in my mind to understand the numbers involved from this Summer exam for the grading of next Summers GCSE. Partly to be able to hold Ofqual to account but also for me to have a firm grip of how the awarding works … Read more

Summer 2016 – Hit List

To be honest I think last night/this morning was the MOST NERVOUS I have EVER been before an exam – for reasons unknown to me!. Overall I felt that paper 1 was fair – our “super group” in the main felt that they we well prepared and it gave them a great deal of confidence … Read more

A little bit of maths – MAY 2016

Here you go … next months calendar. I’ve been emailing this out to parents of our year 11 AND 10 students … seems to have gone down well! The original post containing the sheet for April can be found here and the Solutions (for April) are available here – > Monthly Maths – April – … Read more

National Reference Tests .. again!

The National Reference Tests (NRTs)  made the headlines again last week in this article on the TES website about how the results from the new tests which are designed to indicate whether GCSE grades should be allowed to rise are unlikely to be used until 2019 and suggests that exam results across the country are likely … Read more

Book expectations

Back in June I wrote about having a modus operandii across the department for our expectations in terms of book presentation and it is having a massive impact on what I am seeing in the books. We aren’t “there” yet but certainly making massive inroads in just a term! … not a clue what I’m … Read more

Secret Link