Parent Survey - Reminder

Thank you to those parents who have filled in the questionnaire about our provision for AGT at Matravers. If you haven't done it yet, it's never too late!

Parent questionnaire

Event: Crystal Maze weekend

Letters are going out to students in year 10 and 11 this week about the Crystal Maze weekend, 3rd-5th December.

In the style of the popular Murder Mystery at KS3, this weekend was created in response to pupil requests for a similar weekend at KS4. Over the course of the two days, students will attempt curriculum puzzles to encourage lateral thinking and promote their learning in key subject areas; they will take part in a high ropes course; and contribute to a talent show on Saturday night. On the Sunday, the pupils will enter the Crystal Dome and attempt to win sugary prizes.

Pupils interested in going should return their reply slip to the office by November 19th. Letters are available to download from the Matravers website.

Year 11 Study Skills Day, Nov 5th

On November 5th, 10 students from year 11 went over to the brand new Melksham Oak school to attend a study skills day run by Learning Performance. We have used this company several times before and they provide a session on memory skills and revision tips specifically tailored to our brightest pupils. Since one presenter can run the session with up to 40 students, we shared the provision with pupils from Melksham Oak and Kingdown.

Our presenter, Andy, took us through a number of strategies for revising and helping the facts to stick, which involved actions, drawings, diagrams and - as above - some interaction with the pupils from the other schools. The day was positively received by all and lots of the students agreed that they had some new techniques to try out ahead of their modules the following week, and their mock exams at the end of the month.

A second Learning Performance session will be running in the new year through the Aim Higher program, so look out for information on that if you are interested in knowing more.

Year 8 STEM project

This year, we have been invited to Bath University to take part in a STEM project.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is a hot topic at the moment, because fewer school leavers are continuing studies of them into higher education, which might lead to a shortage of professionals in STEM industries in the future. Bath University have funding for five schools to participate in their STEM project this year and I am really pleased we are going to be one of them.

The project is open to eight year 8 students, along with two mentors from the sixth form. It needed to be a STEM-based focus which will help to improve this school. This year, we are looking at ways to improve the school's energy efficiency and so I have picked that as the theme for our project. As well as doing research on improving the way we use resources in school, pupils will be monitoring our energy usage and producing advice for staff and pupils on what they can do to make a difference.

The launch for this will take place at Bath University on November 24th. On this day, the students will participate in team-building activities to develop the skills they will need to move their project forward. They will also be given advice on how to get started, and how they can measure their success.

Students will then have until June to complete their study. They will be working with myself, Miss Drewitt, the school bursar Mrs Woollard, and the sixth form mentors. During this time, student ambassadors will also be visiting the school to help us stay on track, and to give workshops on presentation skills ready for the celebration day at Bath University on June 28th. At this point, students will present their projects and prizes will be awarded for Best Presentation and Best Overall Study.

Students will need to be available for both the launch day in November and the presentation day in June. In addition, work on the project will be taking place out of school hours and pupils must be prepared to attend regular sessions after school and possibly at lunch time. I am looking for enthusiastic people who are not afraid of hard work and are willing to put them time and effort in to make a difference in school - and, of course, to win the prize!

Because of the nature of this project, I have offered it to both the core AGT group in year 8 and to those students who have been identified as Gifted in Science. Competition for places is likely to be fierce and I am taking people on a first come, first served basis, so please get those slips in if you're interested!

Extra-curricular events this year

Above, you should see a new calendar of events, on which I intend to publish everything available to AGT students at Matravers this year. I will back this up with announcements about letters going out here, and on the school website.

Here is a list of what is planned for this year so far, with venues, and charges where applicable.

KS3:
24th November: Launch date for Y8 STEM project at Bath University
13th-15th March: Murder Mystery Weekend at Braeside, approx. £90 (all KS3)
5th July (provisional date): West Wilts Federation Y8 Challenge Day, Climbing Centre, Bristol
7th-8th July (provisional date): West Wilts Federation Y9 Conference, provisionally Queen's College, Oxford

KS4:
5th November: Y11 Study Skills Day, Melksham Oak
3rd-5th December: Crystal Maze weekend at Braeside, approx. £90 (all KS4)
February: Y11: Launch of West Wilts Federation International Leadership Conference to Malaysia. This trip will run November 2011 but we will be taking applications from Y11 in the spring.

Parent Survey

Every year, I canvass the opinions of parents of AGT students at Matravers to identify gaps in our provision and where our particular strengths lie. This is usually done as a paper questionnaire, completed at an evening meeting. Here is the blog post I made by way of feedback from last year's questionnaires.

This year, as we try to embrace all things technological at Matravers, I am providing the questionnaire as an online form. This will allow you to complete it in your own time and at your own speed, and will also allow me to collate the results and action them more quickly.

I would be extremely grateful if you would take some time to complete this with your child/children, ideally by the end of October.

Parent questionnaire

Welcome back!

We've now been back at school for four weeks and I've been busy planning lots of events for the coming year. These will be posted on a Google Calendar, which is currently displayed above. If you already use Google Calendar, you can subscribe to this calendar by clicking on the link at the bottom of the widget and following the instructions.

I am currently adding to this and preparing an online questionnaire for students and parents to complete this year, so watch this space!

Y9 AGT Conference, The Queen's College, Oxford

This year, as part of the West Wilts Federation for AGT, we were delighted to attend a conference at The Queen's College, Oxford. This conference was an opportunity for year 9 students from across the Federation to get to know their peers from other schools and develop skills they might not usually work on in school, including problem solving and team work with people they were unfamiliar with.

Ten students from each school attended the conference, along with two sixth form mentors, who worked extremely hard to ensure the students all stayed on task and did their best. Each Y9 group was made up of a student from each school, and the conference began on Wednesday afternoon with team building games and activities to allow the groups to meet each other. Once at the conference, each team was given a newspaper from which they had to identify problems facing our nation today. From these, each team was given one topic to focus on for the rest of the conference. They then carried out research from the newspapers and online to create an eight minute presentation on the causes, consequences and possible solutions to the problem they had been given.

This proved quite the challenge for the pupils, who had to come up with engaging presentations without the use of IT: I have to say that I have never seen newspapers so well used! The standard of the final presentations was extremely high and, as a judge, I must confess that it was extremely close and took us a long time to decide on a winning team.

As well as all the hard work, pupils were also offered a short tour around the sights of Oxford and we had a formal dinner at Queen's on Thursday night.


We were lucky to have a number of inspiring speakers to entertain us. The Provost opened the conference with a short history of The Queen's College, and our keynote speaker was Dr Sarah McElwee, a researcher in psychology and education with a particular interest in AGT, who talked to us about the issues surrounding the use of scientific research. At dinner, the Proctor of the college talked to us about college life, and some famous alumni, including Tim Berners-Lee and Rowan Atkinson; and the conference was closed by the college Admissions Tutor who gave the students some tips on applying to Oxford.

Overall, the conference was a resounding success and the students really enjoyed it. I think it helped to open their eyes a little to what is out there and hopefully it will inspire them to aim high in the coming years.

Some updates

It's been a while since I have posted about what we've been doing, so here are some updates.

Extension Tasks
The extension activity spinners I mentioned in March are in use in a few classrooms around the school, and the feedback from students has been positive so far. Since departments were encouraged to generate extension activities that were subject-specific, I have not been providing these weekly as in the past. My focus next year is going to be on raising the challenge for all pupils in all parts of the lesson, and my weekly updates from September will focus on this.

West Wilts Federation Events
There are 2 coming up before the end of the school year.

We have selected 10 year 9 students to attend our Federation Conference at Queen's College, Oxford, from July 1st-2nd. I'm so excited to be organising this for the second year running, and that we have managed to secure such a prestigious institution to host us. 80 young people from across West Wilts will be working together to come up with solutions to some of the issues faced by our nation. Look forward to a full report back!

The following week, 80 year students from across West Wilts will be taking part in a number of challenges at Undercover Rock, including rock climbing and high ropes. This will give students an opportunity to meet their peers and push themselves out of their usual comfort zones to solve problems as teams. Sign ups for this close on Friday and spaces are going fast.

In addition to this, we will be having the first meeting for Malaysia 2010 students in July, and we're currently working on a careers fair for year 10 students, to be held in October.

Ofsted
When Ofsted came in last month they were complimentary about the extra-curricular provision for AGT students here at Matravers. Students interviewed were very positive about the events that they are offered and made it out to be a real strength. I am very pleased to get such good feedback! I am already calendaring next year's events and look forward to them being as widely enjoyed as this year's.

Murder Mystery 2010

Last weekend we held our annual Murder Mystery for KS3, at Braeside in Devizes. This is an enrichment event, aimed at developing skills such as teamwork and creative problem solving, whilst also giving students a try at techniques and topics they might not cover until later in their school career, such as forensic science and accounting.

Each year we have a different theme, and staff work together to write the scripts, come up with the motives and create the evidence for each member of the team. It is a large undertaking, but made worth it by the enjoyment and enthusiasm show by the students.

This year, our theme was Britain's Most Haunted. As well as solving the murder, students worked in their teams to write a ghost story (which had to have a twist at the end so I didn't have nightmares!) which was told at the campfire on Friday night; they also had a technology task during which they had to create a ghost detector. On Saturday morning we did a scavenger hunt around Avebury stone circle, and on Saturday night we staged the Ghost Olympics, which was made even more challenging by the ghost costumes we insisted on certain team members donning before taking part.

Busy though we kept them, we culd not distract them from trying to solve the dastardly murder of Miss "Ed Balls" Oliver, a soundman who had been stabbed during the filming of the show on Friday night. Her murderer, Mr "Al Beano" Phillips was quickly apprehended and revealed in questioning that he had been blackmailed into committing he crime, but unfortunately he died before he could reveal who his blackmailer was, having carelessly drunk from a poisoned cup of coffee. Translating his diary from his native French language didn't shed any light on the subject, so students were forced to use forensic science to test for poison and finger prints on the poison bottle. The accounts for the show were also examined and the suspects questioned. Students then produced an incident board, an incident report and a reconstruction of the events.

Some comments from the students:
"Tiring, but a good experience"
"I really enjoyed the weekend as I enjoyed trying out new things"
"Really fun and enjoyable; quite funny as well."
"Challenging, stressful, but overall - awesome."
"This weekend was absolutely amazing, I've really enjoyed myself and I hope I get the opportunity to come again next year!"

Murder Mystery Theme announcement

We had a successful after school session today, which most of the pupils attended to meet with their groups and come up with a team name and logo.

This year's theme will be Britain's Most Haunted. We are suggesting that pupils dress as ghostbusters or inventive ghouls for dinner on Friday night, after which we will be having a campfire with entertainment provided by the pupils. On Thursday afternoon they will be spending time working with a member of the English department to create their own ghost stories, each of which must have a comedic twist at the end. Marshmallows at the ready! See you all on Friday.

Extension Activity of the Week: 20

This week: Feeling Summary Yet?

For this activity, you will need to provide students with a relevant newspaper or magazine article, or perhaps a page from a higher-level text book. Ask pupils to summarise the information provided.

There are a few ways you could do this -

1. Pick out the words that seem to be used to most in the text, in 30 seconds, to provide a hint at what the subject of it is.
2. Summarise each paragraph in 10 words or less.
3. Create 3 bullet points to cover the most important information shared in the article.
4. Write an abstract to summarise the entire content for another reader.

This will encourage students to speed read and develop their note taking skills, no matter what their level or ability.

Extension Activity Selectors

In an effort to make good quality extension tasks available to all students, no matter how fraught the lesson or busy the teacher, I have created a (highly technical) resource which will be appearing on the walls of classrooms over the next few months.


Extension Activity Selectors have been distributed to two members of each faculty, following a successful inset session spent creating faculty-specific extension tasks to full up the segments. At Easter, I'll be asking for feedback from staff and students on this resource and then making sure there is one in every classroom, once any necessary tweaks have been made. I have already had some positive feedback from students.

There will also be a Flash version coming, which can be inserted into Smartboard slides to make the process even more painfree.

Extension Activity of the Week: 19

This week: The world without....

Encourage your students to think Big Picture with this week's task. Pick something key from the lesson - for example, no more fractions; no more maps; no more theatres; and ask students to ruminate on what the world would be like if this was the case.

This will help them to think about their learning in a wider context and think about how important what they are studying really is.

Extension Activity of the Week: 18

This week: Mini research projects

I planned this one with Art in mind, but it would work with any subject where pupils have access to information books - for example, I'm going to offer a book on History's Greatest Villains for my pupils to get started on.

Pupils should flick through a book of paintings or work examples and pick one they particularly like. They then have a short amount of time online - dependent on how many of them are doing the extension task, or how busy you are with your computer, but probably not more than 3 minutes - to find out as much about it as they possibly can. They then have a second short amount of time, away from the computer, to turn what they have discovered into an information poster (I will be recommending an information spider diagram but then, I am obsessed with spider diagrams - ask IBR)

This will prove to be a meaningful task in three ways:
1. Pupils will look at books and pictures that they might not normally access, and will have to make a decision about what they like, and then find out more about it.
2. It will improve their speed research skills online.
3. It will help with their short term memory, because they will have to hold the information they find in their heads until they can get it on paper.

Parent questionnaire feedback

At the annual AG&T parents' evening in October, questionnaires were completed and some of the same questions kept coming up, so I thought I'd do a sort of FAQ to allow me to respond to some of these. Unfortunately I can't answer all of the questions satisfactorily, but results have been published to all staff so that they are aware of your comments.



Can all subjects provide extension work for pupils who complete their work?

Extension strategies are a big focus for the AG&T department this year and there has been a lot of discussion about them in the Teaching and Learning group.

A meaningful extension task is included every week in the staff bulletin: this is almost always something generic that can be given to pupils without any preparation on the part of the teacher, to make it really easy to incorporate. Hopefully you have seen some of these on the blog, as I always try to include them here so I don't repeat them!

In addition to this, I am developing an extension activity selector tool for use within the classroom; staff will be able to customise these and pupils should then be able to come out and choose their own extension activity, even if the teacher is busy helping someone else.

If your child is consistently running out of work in the same subject and not being given additional tasks, please feel free to contact me or the class teacher.


Many children would like to take part in AG&T but aren’t identified; can you do anything about this?

Students are identified for the school AG&T list in two ways: either through CAT scores or teacher recommendations. National guidelines state that AG&T should represent the top 10% of the school population, so unfortunately there has to be a cut off point somewhere, and as many of the activities I run are cross-curricular they need to be offered to the core group first.

However, all departments keep their own list of pupils who are gifted in their subject, which means that sometimes subject-specific activities are offered to a wider cohort. As a very rough guide, if a pupil is predicted a high level 6 or above at the end of KS3, or an A or A* at GCSE, they have a high chance of being recommended in that subject. This is not a hard and fast rule, however, and it varies from department to department.


My child does much better in subjects that are setted. Why don't all subjects stream?

This may be due to the subject ethos, or timetabling problems. Some departments don't believe that streaming benefits the majority of pupils and prefer to keep sets mixed ability. And, due to increasing pressures on the timetable, often now classes in the same subject are not timetabled against each other, so the flexibility for setting is not there - particularly at key stage four.


The level of challenge needs to be higher, particularly in homework.

With the introduction of PLTS, appropriate challenge and independent learning are high on the agenda in all schools at the moment, and there is some indication that this has already had an impact on our planning.

For example, in History, we are currently developing an extended project homework for all our units at key stage 3, to encourage pupils to study topics independently and improve their research skills. We hope that this will provide extra challenge where it is needed. Meanwhile, Science provide differentiated homeworks and often set research projects for high ability sets.

All AG&T pupils are given a questionnaire once during the year about their lessons, which includes a question about what an appropriately challenging lesson involves. Detailed answers to this help us to build a picture of what our brightest students are looking for.


My child enjoys extra-curricular activities after school, but sometimes they clash/aren't available to the right year group. Can the timetabling of these be looked at?

The program of after school activities is put together by Meryl Hardiman as part of the extended schools initiative. I have passed on these comments to her. However, a lot of teaching staff are limited as to which day they can offer activities due to period 6 A-level lessons, which makes it difficult to spread the clubs out.

GCSE Geology will continue to be offered after school to pupils in year 9, and they will be able to apply for a place at the end of year 8. There is a possibility that more after school GCSEs will be available in the future, to a range of year groups and possibly parents too.


Sometimes communication is poor, and my child has missed out on events. How can this be improved?

All students on the AG&T register are sent letters when a cross-curricular event is available for them; but I do realise that letters sometimes get lost in the post. There is a new school system for solving this problem, whereby electronic copies of letters are placed on the school website for you to download. I will make it clear on here when letters have been sent out, so that if they don't arrive within a few days you can download a copy from the website, or ring or email me to ask for one.


Can we provide lockers?

Unfortunately it's not within my remit to lobby for things like this - all I can do is pass comments on; however, if it is an issue that your child feels strongly about they should try to raise it through school council.

Event: Murder Mystery weekend, March

Letters have gone out this week for the annual Key Stage Three Murder Mystery weekend at Braeside, which will be taking place this year from Friday 12th March to Sunday 14th March.

Duing the weekend, students will need to use a variety of skills to solve a dastardley murder, including code breaking, orienteering, forensic science and translation. The weekend is always hugely enjoyed by both students and staff alike and the feedback is overhwelmingly positive.


If you haven't had a letter but would like one, please email me at agt@matravers.wilts.sch.uk


Here's a group picture of last year's Detectives, giving a big YAARRRR (our theme was pirates):

We will be revealing the theme for the weekend (and possibly giving some clues) exclusively here the week before the event, so stay tuned!

Event: Malaysia Conference meeting

There will be a meeting for year 11 students and their parents at Clarendon on February 8th, at 7pm, to launch the 2010 International Leadership Conference to Malaysia, which is due to occur in November.

This conference has proved enormously successful since its inception five years ago, and places are always oversubscribed. However, we are pleased to report that Matravers has always been represented and we're hopeful that this will be the case for 2010 also. The conference takes place at a private sixth form college about 70km north of Kuala Lumpur and involves researching and making presentations on world issues, as well as day trips to allow pupils to experience the rich culture and surroundings in Malaysia.

I will be passing letters out to eligible pupils in year 11 this week; however, if you would like more information please contact me - agt@matravers.wilts.sch.uk

If you would like to read about what we got up to in Malaysia in 2009, we kept a blog during the trip which can be accessed here - http://westwiltsagt.blogspot.com

Extension Activity of the Week: 17

This week: Twitter (again)

In September I suggested an activity in which pupils condense the lesson information into 140 characters or less, to encourage them to think about the key points of the lesson and reflect on what they have learned.

I have now set up a Matravers Twitter account so that there is a place that these can be shared. This will improve communication with parents, who can subscribe to our updates.

The account can be accessed at http://twitter.com (you will need to use the unfiltered internet for this). The username is MatraversSchool (all one word). See me for the password.

I look forward to reading your class tweets!

Extension Activity of the Week: 16

This week: Podcasts

This is something that can feed directly into the content you put on the school website, if you wish. Ask pupils to write a short speech, which they can then record as a podcast. The speech could be a summary of the lesson content; an explanation of how the lesson fits in with what they have already learned; a list of things they would like to learn as a result of the lesson; or anything you can think of that would help them to consolidate their learning.

The easiest way to record these podcasts is onto a mobile phone, many of which have voice recorders, or an ipod. Since using mobile phones as a teaching and learning tool is largely uncharted territory here, however, you might consider requesting voice recording equipment from reprographics, or a video camera, and collecting the podcasts that way.