Fabulous Work in School
Four members of the 4a Tutor Group have been welcomed into school for two days a week to have the opportunity to work with their core subject teachers so that they can maintain their progression during lockdown. Miss Harris has the pleasure of teaching Jack S, Taylor K, Roman C and Tyler B for their science lessons. We have covered topics such as 'Forms of energy', 'Energy efficiency and practice with formulaic questions', 'Early earth, formation and atmosphere' and 'the structure of the Earth'. We will be moving onto 'plate tectonics and the theory of Pangea'. All boys have been very keen to learn and have worked very well. They have completed all written work to a good standard and have shown interest in every lesson. Roman and Tyler have been really confident and showed good knowledge. Jack and Taylor are now much more willing and keen to complete their work and have been asking relevant questions during the lesson. They have all, also been well humoured and relaxed and the lessons have flown by too quickly for my liking as they are so productive but also enjoyable.
Remote teaching of Maths can be very challenging. We all remember the days of sitting at school or at home trying to solve equations or add fractions and our success being largely dependent on the teacher's interaction with us. So my initial concern was 'How do I provide the support and feedback needed for our pupils without actually being there?'; enter MyMaths. For those who have engaged with the website, it has been a more than capable substitution for actual lessons. It provides real-time feedback, online lessons and collects important data for progress monitoring. I can keep in touch with the students through its messaging functionality and provide videos on there also. MyMaths is one of the most widely used maths programmes amongst mainstream schools and this is because all of the content is clearly matched to the national curricla for KeyStages 2-4.
The boys at MHS have engaged with MyMaths brilliantly with approximately 23 pupils having completed over 200 separate (a conservative estimate as some pupils were completing 3-4 tasks a week) pieces of work. I can use this data to look at levels of attainment but more importantly to predict gaps that may have formed during lockdown.
In Literature the Year 10s have been working hard to revise Macbeth by using three different pieces of software. All their lessons are now stored on Class Notebook (through Office 365) which they can access any time as they would their emails. Every lesson is signposted with the intention of the learning and useful links are put on to enrich their learning. The English Department has recently signed up to Digital Theatre Plus, so now the Year 10s can watch Macbeth whenever they want, as well as access behind the scenes interviews and critical comparison essays. In addition to this Class Notebook also stores the independent learning that the boys can complete via MyOn. At the moment the Year 10s have read the graphic novel to remind them of the plot and characters in the play and are now moving on to the short story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe. This means they are engaging in the Accelerated Reading Programme as well as adding to their knowledge of other authors that use dramatic devices to build tension within a story.
It’s been fantastic to have the Year 10s back and I’m so impressed how well they are doing with this very new way of learning – good work boys
All the pupils who have been in school also fully understand the importance of sanitising their work area at key times and are doing an excellent job with this.
