This month, we’re welcoming David Shanks back with his 3rd blog for us… And so, school is no longer “out for summer” and another lengthy wait to hear Alice Cooper’s classic on the radio begins. We are learning new student names, dusting off the teaching cobwebs and are most proud of our shiny new stationery […]
Read moreGiven the number of recent politically related international and national events, I would be safe in saying that as a British public we are more aware than ever of ‘political policy’ and its impact. Brexit; Presidential elections; general elections – to name but a few – have given rise to a wealth of conversations about […]
Read more
One of the ways that I like to stretch my most able students is by offering them the opportunity to enter nationwide geography competitions. The benefits of this are threefold: students get the chance to challenge themselves and expand their geographical knowledge; the profile of the geography department is raised; and older students gain valuable […]
Read more
“I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member” Groucho Marx To help prospective students to understand what sort of work they would be expected to do in Psychology and to give me a chance to assess their skills and motivation, I ask any student who does not meet […]
Read more
Some years ago, the department I was in at the time analysed the A Level and GCSE results of everyone who took Psychology. They found that the best predictor of performance on the A Level was Additional Science or the average grade that a student achieved in Triple Science. If students had a B or […]
Read moreShutterstock ID 156658052; Graham Elsdon looks at ways to begin an A level literature course with year 12 Never will you have such a captive audience as the one labelled ‘Year 12: September’. They arrive uncertain of the variety and taste of the subject they’ve actually chosen to study. As a teacher, you are […]
Read more
As the summer holidays rapidly become a distant memory and we find ourselves dealing with all that another busy school year brings, this September will also see many of you starting to teach a new GCSE Psychology specification. There are potentially many questions that you may have when faced with the newness and the unknown […]
Read more
During the spring term we decided as a department to develop a Scheme of Work that would prepare our Year 9 students more effectively for the demands of the new GCSE course. We delivered the lessons around the time of options choices to give the students a realistic idea of what GCSE geography would be […]
Read moreSummer is the perfect time to catch up on the reading you haven’t found time for during the beginning of the year. Sometimes it can be hard to decide from all the fantastic books that are out there and to give you some inspiration we have put together a list of what the English team […]
Read more
I know many people feel the new AQA specification is overloaded – so I decided to conduct a rough comparison of the old and new specifications by comparing the number of spreads in the old and new Complete Companions . Each spread roughly equals one essay topic. What I found is in the table below. The option topics […]
Read more
