With one of our focuses being the teaching of boys and the fact that I am teaching my first ever all boy group in English, I decided to do some research on different ways to keep them engaged and challenge them at the same time.  Having focused initially on high expectations, respect and getting their initial interest in the subject matter, I am now looking for specific strategies to keep their engagement high and unlock their potential.

I’d like to start by welcoming you all back to a brand new academic year. I hope you all had a good and relaxing holiday and are now feeling refreshed and ready for the year ahead. I am hugely impressed, as always, by the way in which you have started the academic year. I have visited several classrooms and in each case, I have seen you working hard, behaving well and making good progress. Thank you and well done.

This will be last blog of the academic year. There is always a lot to reflect back on at the end of the year, but I will start with some thoughts on activities week.

A key part of what we do at MRC is to develop ‘education with character.’ This is where you learn outside of the classroom as well as inside. It is about opportunity, doing the right thing, helping and supporting others (even if you aren’t asked to). It is also about developing resilience, tenacity and determination – learning that even if you have a setback, you just try harder.

Last week was particularly good in College. I say to you in assemblies and through tutor time that you make us what we are. You are showing in so many positive ways just how good you are. Thank you.

Many of you will have seen the incredible footage and scenes from ‘Blue Planet’ recently. I thought the programme was truly inspirational – especially as it tackled pollution from plastic head-on. It was terrible to see the birds and aquatic life struggling to survive due to eating plastic. We all need to play our part to help with this by making sure all our rubbish goes in the bins. If it is dropped, it can be eaten by birds which could cause them serious harm. Our College does look really good, but we can all make an extra effort here. Thank you.
 

We have a new look website for our College. All of the previous information is still there – you may need to search a little to find it! It does look much better and I would like to thank Mrs Gibbs for her hard work in making this happen.

We all teach students with a range of abilities, interests and learning styles. Our students do not learn the same way and do not retain knowledge at the same speed. Some will grasp a concept quickly and some will need several explanations practice before understanding that concept. On the other hand, we need to ensure that they all achieve their full potential and make progress over time. We all use differentiation in different ways in our lessons

I would like to start this week by saying a huge well done to you all. I visited nearly all, if not all, classrooms last week and saw you focussed, working hard and doing well. A massive well done and thank you to you for your work and dedication. In terms of our values, you are definitely showing you want to achieve – this is great and we must keep it up.

What is active learning?

“Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing” (Prince, 2004).