19 replies to this topic

[Dan Moorhouse]

For the first time this year the History dept has been putting 'critical steps' to improving historical skills, based on the NC skill areas, into every KS3 student's books. These will be accompained by posters for every classroom which can be used by the teacher to direct the pupils to these areas.

This sounds very interesting. If you've time could you outline what you've included in these posters in a little more detail - or send along the files so they can go online for all of us to share.

Closest I get to this is putting student speak level descriptions in books / folders. Having attractive posters based on the different skills would be a great asset as they'd be more widely accepted and appreciated by a large minority of my students.

[missrandall]

Dear Dan

I am Head of History at a small community school in Lancashire. I follow the AQA GCSE syllabus and am keen to transfer my successful Assessment for Learning Policy to KS4. However, I am still only in my second year of teaching and am slightly befuddled about how to establish this, in terms of grades and levels - would definitlely like to be able to give pupils sense of progression. I currently attempt to do this with Year 11, through regular exam papers and feedback sessions. However, Year 10 are a thoroughly mixed ability group and a firm assessment for learning policy would help immensely.

please could you give me some assistance as I am anxious for this to be in place in time for our forthcoming HMI inspection.

Sincerely Jane Randall

[Dan Moorhouse]

Miss Randall - see the PM I've sent you.

Much of the answer will depend upon the board and syllabus that you follow, the way that SHP is assessed will be different from the method in which the Modern World would be assessed for example.

If you can post these details we'll be able to get some practical ideas together for you, answering without them would result in a fairly vague response that might be of little or no use to you.

[Dan Moorhouse]

Lesley Anne's posts based on a recent Inset Session that she attended are partcularly relevant to the theme of this Seminar and will be of use to people studying the Modern World syllabus.

Likewise, Stephen Drew's seminar on Maximising the outcomes of Revision is clearly also relevant here as an effective revision programme will help to maximise the grades attained by students.

What use do people make of their departments prior results? I've spent some time today looking at the last 2 years results and have plotted them on the Autumn pack charts to see how they compare - use KS3 data and the final result. I'm currently looking at ways of making the findings usable with my current groups - chances graphs, examples of high rates of progress within school etc... what do other people do with results from previous years?

[Dave Wallbanks]

I've just added further notes from the improving results in SHP GCSE on
http://www.schoolhis...t=0