Expectations Evening Wilmslow High School What will these

Expectations Evening @ Wilmslow High School

What will these sessions cover? • How we will assess our students • How we will expect our students to set themselves Personal Bests • How we will expect our students to use Knowledge Organisers to develop ‘complete’ learning • How we will set homework • How we will expect our students to use Firefly to access their homework • The key learning gaps for our Year 8 students in English and Maths and how you can help your son or daughter to address these • How we group students in English, Maths and Science • How we will keep you informed of your son or daughter’s progress

Our Key messages to our parents and students • All our students are capable of improving their learning • Effective learning happens when students think hard, work hard and learn from their mistakes – ‘easy’ learning is not permanent learning • We are focusing our teaching on activities that will help our students to think hard, work hard and learn from their mistakes

Assessment and Personal Bests

The Process • Started in the 14/15 academic year • Has involved staff across the school researching and testing ideas • Influenced by high quality research by, e. g. Dweck, Cziksentmihalyi, Wiliam, Oates, Sweller, Goldacre, Willingham, Hirsch, Hattie, Bjork, Martin, Putwain • Also influenced by Strava, Fitbit & Garmin

Principles • Must promote a growth mindset and support a mentally healthy ethos for our students • Must communicate honestly the results of assessments and what they tell us about a child's learning – forcing us to confront the brutal facts when necessary • Must help to motivate students (and staff, and parents? ) to behave in ways that help high quality learning to happen

• Here's what we told the students at the start of September. . .

How do really great achievements come about?

Personal Bests and Complete Learning We are changing the way we talk to students about targets and performance because we want to ensure that all Wilmslow High students are: – feeling positive and purposeful about their work and the things they are learning – motivated to do their best in their learning all the time – confident that they can improve their performance – clear about how they are doing – developing really effective habits for learning

Two important expectations 1. Completeness. We expect all students to take responsibility for learning and remembering everything they have been taught: we describe this as ‘complete’ learning. 2. Beat your PB. In tests and exams we want you to think about how you achieved your best in the past then to try to improve on that to beat your Personal Best in the next assessment.

Fluency Learning Level of mastery Description Fluent When you have understood it really thoroughly and are able to apply it in new situations and solve problems. At this stage much of your knowledge is so good that you are often not even aware of using it – it becomes automatic and unconscious. Complete When you have made sense of the ideas and remembered almost all of the important information. You can apply your learning but you probably still need to think quite carefully about parts of it in order to ensure you are doing it correctly. Substantial When you have understood the general idea and started to remember the key facts. With careful thought and a bit of help you can apply your knowledge and solve problems. Establishing When you are starting to make sense of what it all means and starting to learn the key facts. Initial How well you understand something when you have first been shown it.

Completeness • Don’t leave learning the facts until just before the test or exam • Learn them early so that they can help you establish a proper, deep understanding of things • Knowledge Organisers: use them repeatedly and learn everything on them • Quizzing is really important because there’s a difference between knowing something and being able to recall it when you need it • Completeness means knowing all the stuff you have been told • Completeness is something everyone can achieve, regardless of your success in tests and exams in the past

Personal Bests • How do really successful people measure their own performance and set themselves targets? • Not by believing that being they have to be the best all the time. . . • But by believing that they can always grow to be better • Think about how you can improve on what you have already achieved and how you can improve your approach to do this • Think in terms of Personal Bests and optimising your own performance • If you don’t manage to beat your PB, keep thinking about your approach and keep trying hard: you’ll get there

How will students know how they are doing? • Informal feedback about progress in their learning journeys: “are you moving towards fluency and developing a complete knowledge of everything you have been told to learn? ” • Formal feedback twice per year based on carefully designed assessments (exams) that will be broadranging and quite challenging in parts. • Increasingly, S-Scores will be used to make sense of exam performances

• The next part has not yet been communicated to students

S-Scores Percentages are not very helpful in some ways because: • Some exams are harder than others • 100% is not always a good reference point • 50% might actually be a really good result for some students So, instead we are starting to us S-Scores which look a little different • 100 is average for students in your year group, nationally • 105 is average for a typical Wilmslow year group • S-scores range between 60 and 140 • Most people (about 70%) will score between 85 and 115 • You can compare marks between different subjects and it makes some sense even though the exams might have been quite different

Why are we using percentages less? 0 18 50 100

The standardising and scaling process 0 19 70 100 130

Possible GCSE grade 1 (English Language) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Possible GCSE grade 1 (Mathematics) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Knowledge Organisers

What does fluency learning mean for curriculum, teaching and assessment? • We aspire to every student knowing the key facts • Learning the facts is a crucial part of understanding the subject more deeply • This is not simply rote learning – having ready access to powerful facts is part of constructing a proper understanding • How?

What does a knowledge organiser look like?

Events Characters George Lennie Candy Curley’s Wife Crooks Slim Carlson frustrated, devoted, a dreamer childlike, vulnerable, physically powerful unloved, an outcast, aging insecure, unmerciful, jealous a seductive temptress, objectified, lonely, nameless cynical, proud, isolated compassionate, wise, respected heartless, insensitive Key Quotes 1 We meet George and Lennie in an idyllic, natural setting. They discuss their dream of freedom & self-sufficiency. 2 They arrive at the ranch and the claustrophobic bunkhouse, where we are introduced to Candy, the boss, Curley’s Wife, Slim and Carlson. 3 Candy’s dog is shot by Carlson. Candy is able to finance the dream. Curley attacks Lennie. 4 Set in Crooks’ ramshackle shed. Lennie and Curley’s Wife pay Crooks a visit. 5 In the barn. Curley’s Wife is killed by Lennie and Lennie escapes. Back ‘down by the river’. George shoots Lennie. The dream is dead. 1 C 1. “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . “ 6 2 C 4. “Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. ” 3 C 6. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically. 1 Steinbeck encourages us to empathise with the plight of migrant workers during the Great Depression. 2 The American Dream is shown to be impossible: reality defeats idealism. 3 The novella explores the human need for companionship and the tragedy of loneliness. 4 Steinbeck reveals the predatory nature of mankind: the powerless are targeted by the powerful. 5 Steinbeck explores the tension between the inevitability of fate and the fragility of human dreams. The prejudices of 1930 s America are exposed, including racism, sexism and ageism. The novella is an indictment of the way society treats the dispossessed. 4 C 5. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. 5 C 3. "I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't of ought to let no stranger shoot my dog" 6 C 1. “O. K. Someday – we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres…” 7 C 2. She had full, rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up. Themes and Context 8 C 4. Crooks the negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness room; a little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn. 6 9 C 6. “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatrin’ them two guys? ” 7

So only knowledge counts? • No, this is not simply rote learning – having ready access to powerful facts is part of constructing a proper understanding, being able to solve problems easily and makes the acquisition of higher level skills easier; • Learning the facts is a low threshold way of starting to learn about an area of knowledge; on its own learning facts does not constitute understanding or equip students with the skills to succeed

The learning journey – Knowledge organisers to fluency Homework / revision • • Pre-test Ahsdfjhasrf Dkjasdhf Asdfkasjh Sdkasdf Jasdhjhadf Sdljasfsdg Score 4/10 LESSON Test • • • Ahsdfjhasrf Dkjasdhf Asdfkasjh Sdkasdf Jasdhjhadf Sdljasfsdg • Score LESSON PROGRESS 9/10

Homework

Homework • How much? • When? • What?

Homework Focussed on completeness and fluency In Firefly Learning tasks - KOs especially Learning vocabulary & spellings, in all subjects Specific research tasks, which develop proper research skills • Re-drafting, correcting, responding • Electronic homework: mymaths, Doddle, Firefly etc • Reading – ½ hour/day please. • • •

Key messages from English

English GCSEs • 2 x GCSEs English Language and English Literature • NO tiered entry any more • English Literature is a CLOSED BOOK exam

English Literature

1. Read • Students should read for at least 30 minutes a day • Choose challenging texts to extend their vocabulary • It’s great escapism and brilliant for their imagination!

2. Non- Fiction • Students find this one of the most challenging aspects of their GCSE English Language exam Increases their cultural capital and helps them to consider alternative perspectives

3. Write Accurately • Artful and accurate writing is a key area of focus across the whole of KS 4. Students should: - Focus on precision - Learn the SPAG "rules" - quiz them! - Proof–read - slowly and carefully

4. Homework 2 x tasks a week Pre-set at the start of each half term Doddle – online quizzing (Literacy & SPAG) BACpack – independent tasks to prepare or revise • Done over time -not to be left until the last week! • •

Doddle

BAC Packs: Building Academic Challenge

e t a r a Ye e v a R 8 G s n' C A B c a p k r o w k

WHS Twitter: • Information and updates • Useful links • Revision tasks • Key terminology • Suggested reading • Celebrating success Follow us: @whigh_eng

Key messages from Maths

How can you help? • Make sure they know the basics…. – Times tables up to 10 x 10 – Adding and subtracting in columns – How to multiply a 3 digit number by a 3 digit number without using a calculator e. g. 478 x 391 = – Short division method e. g. 536 ÷ 8 = 8)536 – The names and descriptions of basic 2 -D and 3 -D shapes. e. g. trapezium, sphere, etc. – Equivalence of fractions, decimals and percentages. e. g. ¼ = 0. 25 = 25% – Know their definitions. e. g. square and cube numbers, prime numbers, factors, multiples, etc.

How can you help? • Equipment – Pencil – Ruler – Scientific calculator – Compasses – Protractor If a teacher has to spend 5 minutes of every lesson lending out and collecting back in basic equipment, it equates to: • 780 minutes each school year or……. • Just over 15½ lessons each school year or…. . • Almost 4 weeks of maths lessons!

How can you help? • Learning Gaps – Every student will have mathematical learning gaps. These become evident through day-to-day teaching of new concepts and as a result of sitting assessments. They need to make sure they know what their learning gaps are and do something about filling them. • Practise! – Not thinking that they know something just because they can do it in class. They need to keep practising.

My Maths

Further information…… The Mathematics Department’s curriculum digest can be found online at: http: //www. wilmslowhigh. com/curriculum/key-stage-3/

How we will keep you informed of your son or daughter’s progress

Year 7 Date Thursday 10 th November Week of 13 th February Thursday 16 th March Information Wilmslow Way Points update Year 7 mid year exams Year 7 Parents Evening (exam results) Week of 19 th June Week of 17 th July Y 7 end of year exams Y 7 Report out (exam results)

Year 8 Date Week of 6 th February Thursday 2 nd March Information Year 8 mid year exams Year 8 Parents Evening (exam results) Week of 19 th June Week of 17 th July Y 8 end of year exams Y 8 Report out (exam results)

Year 9 Date Week of 30 th January Thursday 2 nd February Thursday 16 th February Information Year 9 mid year exams KS 4 Course Choices Evening Year 9 Parents Evening (exam results) Week of 26 th June Week of 17 th July Y 9 end of year exams Y 9 Report out (exam results)

Year 10 Date Week of 7 th November Thursday 24 th November From 5 th December Friday 4 th February Information Any concerns Year 10 Parents Evening Y 10 mid year exams Year 10 Report out (exam results) Week of 13 th March Week of 26 th June Week of 17 th July Any concerns Y 10 end of year exams Exam results information out

Year 12 Date Week of 7 th November Thursday 8 th December From 9 th January Friday 10 th February Information Any concerns Year 12 Parents Evening Y 12 mid year exams Year 12 Report out (exam results) February March Week of 10 th July Decisions about AS or linear entry Any concens Y 12 end of year exams for linear courses Exam results information out Summer holidays

How will we check your child’s progress? • Formative feedback in lessons and on students’ work • Students setting themselves Personal Best goals in form time 6 x over the course of the year • Two exams per year: mid year and end of year • Two additional check points for Year 10 and Year 12 (November and March) • Half termly review of behaviour and learner points – we will contact you if there are concerns

Reports that focus on closing learning gaps

How will we report on your child’s progress: Year 7 -9? • Standardised Scores and exam percentages • The one key learning target in each subject that would improve your child’s performance • The one key learner focus in each subject that would improve your child as a learner • We will track how well students have met these two targets from one report to the next • We will provide additional feedback about how your child has developed as a young person of character through our Wider Curriculum

How will we report on your child’s progress: Year 10 -13? • Projected grades in each subject • The one key learning target in each subject that would improve your child’s performance • The one key learner focus in each subject that would improve your child as a learner • We will track how well students have met these two targets from one report to the next • We will provide additional feedback about how your child has developed as a young person of character through our Wider Curriculum