A long day on Thursday of last week: the day of the teachers' strike.
As the day dawned, I was in York. I then drove from east to West along the M62, past the farm in the middle of the motorway immortalised by John Shuttleworth. Also saw that the water levels were very low at Scammonden. My sat nav guided me into Liverpool, where I saw a march underway, then under the Wallasey tunnel and into the Wirral.
Thanks to Victoria Ellis and Angus Willson for correcting my geography earlier...
I was headed for a school in West Kirby for an SSAT event, one of a series of briefings that had been organised to explore the potential impact of the English Baccalaureate.
I started with an update on the eBacc, which was based on an SSAT presentation with some additions, and some input from OFSTED and the GA. The presentation can be viewed below (via Slideshare)
EBacc in the Humanities
A few thoughts from the delegates...
One school had set up a task-force to explore the implications of introducing the EBacc
One school had created fast-track groups: a teacher had just finished teaching a History GCSE group in 4 lessons per week over a period of 6 months !
The general feeling was that the ending of the modular GCSE option would lead to more issues for them than the introduction of the EBacc
Some schools had what they called a 'guided choice' for certain cohorts (i.e. no choice...)
Some schools had set a particular target for % of the year who would gain the Baccalaureate
The method of identifying which students should do the Baccalaureate was discussed, with some schools identifying students using their Science results
A colleague shared an excellent booklet which set out a 'noughts and crosses' assessment, which offered a range of routes through a selection of 3 from 9 options, with a central levelled piece that all had to complete. I shall be adapting that and using it at a CPD event near you shortly....
Some schools had a 15" minute interview with all students and their parents to identify appropriate students to complete the Baccalaureate
Local Headteachers in the NW were apparently not impressed with the changes that were taking place
The event also had an update on the excellent work that was being done to embed the Humanities specialism at Hilbre High School on the Wirral. I was particularly impressed with the drama production based on the ship HMS Birkenhead, which sank and gave the world the phrase "women and children first". When the production was put on, each member of the audience was given a ticket which was printed with the name of one of the passengers. They could then find out whether they survived when the ship sank... Personalising the experience very nicely !
I also liked the 'themes' that ran through the learning, with the first half term of the year having the theme "BEGINNINGS" and a nice theme of "THE WIDER WORLD" for the final half term of the year.
A reminder of the link to the QCDA's Exemplification of Standards website, which I flagged up on the day, and has the portfolios of work for Geography and History at levels 3-8
You need to visit this site if you haven't already - it's now been there some time and there are still a lot of colleagues who don't know about it...
Thanks to Paul Lloyd for hosting the event, and to the folks at SSAT for their organisation.
As the day dawned, I was in York. I then drove from east to West along the M62, past the farm in the middle of the motorway immortalised by John Shuttleworth. Also saw that the water levels were very low at Scammonden. My sat nav guided me into Liverpool, where I saw a march underway, then under the Wallasey tunnel and into the Wirral.
Thanks to Victoria Ellis and Angus Willson for correcting my geography earlier...
I was headed for a school in West Kirby for an SSAT event, one of a series of briefings that had been organised to explore the potential impact of the English Baccalaureate.
I started with an update on the eBacc, which was based on an SSAT presentation with some additions, and some input from OFSTED and the GA. The presentation can be viewed below (via Slideshare)
EBacc in the Humanities
View more presentations from GeoBlogs
One school had set up a task-force to explore the implications of introducing the EBacc
One school had created fast-track groups: a teacher had just finished teaching a History GCSE group in 4 lessons per week over a period of 6 months !
The general feeling was that the ending of the modular GCSE option would lead to more issues for them than the introduction of the EBacc
Some schools had what they called a 'guided choice' for certain cohorts (i.e. no choice...)
Some schools had set a particular target for % of the year who would gain the Baccalaureate
The method of identifying which students should do the Baccalaureate was discussed, with some schools identifying students using their Science results
A colleague shared an excellent booklet which set out a 'noughts and crosses' assessment, which offered a range of routes through a selection of 3 from 9 options, with a central levelled piece that all had to complete. I shall be adapting that and using it at a CPD event near you shortly....
Some schools had a 15" minute interview with all students and their parents to identify appropriate students to complete the Baccalaureate
Local Headteachers in the NW were apparently not impressed with the changes that were taking place
The event also had an update on the excellent work that was being done to embed the Humanities specialism at Hilbre High School on the Wirral. I was particularly impressed with the drama production based on the ship HMS Birkenhead, which sank and gave the world the phrase "women and children first". When the production was put on, each member of the audience was given a ticket which was printed with the name of one of the passengers. They could then find out whether they survived when the ship sank... Personalising the experience very nicely !
I also liked the 'themes' that ran through the learning, with the first half term of the year having the theme "BEGINNINGS" and a nice theme of "THE WIDER WORLD" for the final half term of the year.
A reminder of the link to the QCDA's Exemplification of Standards website, which I flagged up on the day, and has the portfolios of work for Geography and History at levels 3-8
You need to visit this site if you haven't already - it's now been there some time and there are still a lot of colleagues who don't know about it...
Thanks to Paul Lloyd for hosting the event, and to the folks at SSAT for their organisation.
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