Regents Review Spring '16

The Regents Review Spring 2016

Departmental News

English

Key Stage 3 Jasmine Atkins, Tia Douglas, Tegan Earle. Regan Foreman, Lilly Frimpong, Julia Niemczyk, Charlie Parnell, Mary-Lou Stocks, Marni Welch, Liam Woods, Anelka Yossef along with Mrs Collis have been out and about this term. Not exactly ‘marching in’, more like ‘mini-bused in’, on a trip to St Mary’s Stadium, the home of Southampton Football Club. Met at reception, the students were escorted to the Mike Channon Suite, to join the other schools participating in the launch of The Premier League Football Club Project. After initial introductions one of the highlights was a tour around the stadium. Unfortunately because it was the day of a match, there was no visit to the changing rooms. However, this was not as disappointing as the trip to the prison holding cell! The team leader, James, promised that on the next visit, both areas would be available for inspection. The day was not all fun and frivolity as the idea behind the project is to give the Year 7s a chance to use numeracy and literacy in real life situations. Even Mrs Collis got in on the action when it came to creating a Dream Team of past and current players, using the value per player and the clubs limitations on cost. The students, who the day was all about, were excellent ambassadors for RPCC, and this wasn’t just praise from their proud teacher. The group were awarded the prize for the best behaved and team players by the events’ organisers of the day: match tickets for the game against Watford – which, by the way, they won 2-0!

Key Stage 4 Exam time!

Pre-public Mocks This term has been a very demanding one for Year 11. With the Pre-public mock examinations at the beginning of March, students spent a lot of time revising and preparing for these. Every student in Year 11 was issued with a revision guide for ‘Of Mice and Men’, courtesy of the English Department to aid them in their independent studies. Many students attended revision sessions with their teachers to develop their skills and understanding – not just for the free pizza! With GCSEs imminent, revision is the key to preparing for exams. Here are some tips from your English teachers to help you prepare for your language and literature GCSEs: 1. Re-read the key texts you have studied. This will mean you are familiar with the plot and will also help you with finding quotations and your own extracts. 2. Use revision websites such as BBC Bitesize – they have information on plot, characters, relationships and themes. 3. Make sure you know to only reference the context in your ‘Of Mice and Men’ literature exam. You do not need to write about the context of your other literature text.

It has been an especially busy time for Year 9 students who have already sat their English examinations for the year. This required students to write a transactional piece – a skill they will be required to use in their actual GCSE exams in 2018. All students handled their English exam with maturity and were committed to doing well. ‘Even It Up’ Some Year 9 classes engaged with the ‘Even It Up’ poetry challenge created by The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network and Oxfam. Students were inspired to find their voices and speak out about global inequality and gender inequality in the form of poetry. In conjunction with this, we also explored non-fiction pieces that demonstrated inequality. Students studied extracts from ‘I am Malala’ by Malala Yousafzai, learning about her experience of schooling as a female student in Pakistan in a region with a heavy Taliban presence. Students produced some fantastic poems that contrasted their experiences in the UK with a person who does not have the same luxuries as them.

Spoken Language This term Year 10 have focused on Spoken Language Endorsement; a qualification in speaking and listening. For this, students had to give a formal presentation to the class for a minimum of five minutes. In addition to this, they also needed to respond to questions asked by members of the class and their teacher. This seemed a very daunting prospect to many of our Year 10 students, who were not overly familiar with this kind of task – however they grasped the challenge with both hands and everyone delivered their presentations. Year 10 came up with some very interesting topics, for example eating disorders, personal experiences, the relevance of feminism and police brutality.

10