As Covid-19 continued to disrupt education across the world, students, teachers – and exam boards – faced difficult decisions on how to approach the Summer 2021 exam series. Jamie Kirkaldy, Head of Teaching and Learning Support for OxfordAQA , an international exam board offering International GCSEs, AS and A-levels, explores how OxfordAQA approached this decision and […]
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Our students have had a mixed experience with regards to completing the Religious Studies GCSE. At one end of the spectrum, some have had their full timetable of live teaching throughout lockdown whilst some have had the curriculum set for them to work through independently. And then we may have students that haven’t engaged with […]
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It’s hard to believe that it’s a year ago that RE teachers were gathered at a hotel in outer London for Strictly RE 2020. Little did we know how things would change for Strictly RE 2021. Everything has moved online and it’s already begun! This year, NATRE have thought carefully about how they can support […]
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“…there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know…” (United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2002) The Latin origin of the word revision suggests the student must “look again”. Sadly, we know that just ‘looking’ at work again is of little use. However, I’d go further – the whole concept […]
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This return to school has been like no other. As usual, we have had to face confirmation of Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve after a long summer break; but this time, with the addition of those months in lockdown. And, although happy to be back in school, we have found ourselves having to work extra hard not […]
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So, we are now in July, and according to the government, we are through the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic and life is beginning to break out of lockdown. We have had about a quarter of the calendar year and more than ten teaching weeks away from our classrooms and we are starting to welcome […]
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Rebecca Geoghegan discusses how lessons and learning might evolve through an increased virtual experience with her four stages of reimagining the classroom. When the closures were announced on the 18th March, most schools would say that they had an inkling it was coming. International news had led to much speculation and ‘loose’ plans being created […]
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Aprender a dudar es aprender a pensar (‘Learning to doubt is learning to think’). -Octavio Paz In March this year, school life as we know it shuddered to a halt, and as we write, when and under what guise it will fully return remains unclear. Over the past few months, teachers and students will have […]
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How do we support key year groups, now and on our return to school? and what do we do for those who can’t return at the same time? These are the questions we all wish we knew the answers to, aren’t they? The truth is I don’t think that anyone has the magic fix, that […]
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I’m on the “coronacoaster”: one minute I’m up and the next I’m down – it’s an emotional rollercoaster. Most of the time, I feel like it’s all fine and we are just in a new normal, but in the blink of an eye, I’m flying by the seat of my pants, heading down with the […]
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