First lesson:
"Hello! I'm Mrs Davies. Welcome back to school - it's good to meet you! The first thing I'm going to do today is present you with the GCSE Maths Grade you'll be receiving in August next year."
Every student was then given 3 individualised envelopes with 'Minimum', 'Some' or 'Maximum' effort written on them indicating the amount of effort they feel they are prepared to put into their learning in Maths this year.
I gave them a little spiel about me never meeting them before, that on purpose I hadn't spoken to their previous teachers and that from this moment they could be whoever they wanted to be in Maths lessons.
They were then allowed to pick only one envelope - example below:
They were then given a post it note, asked to commit to the grade they were going to aim for and seal it in a new envelope.
These were then strung together and hung over the corner of my whiteboard as a visual reminder.
We're going to open them again in December and review.
I'll be putting a copy of this morning's poster up right next to it:
If you'd like a copy of the poster it can be downloaded here from TES - let me know if you'd prefer sending it by email.
They also seemed genuinely pleased that I had made a page just for them on my school blog:
I think this is a brilliant idea - thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI am interested how you come up with the grades? Is it based on school target grades +/-1, or from their previous results?
Do you think any students were unhappy with your suggested grade? (too high / too low?) I am keen to give this a go, but I think getting the grades right before I know the students might be a challenge for me!
@MrColebourne
Thank you so much for your comment!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't met the class before either as I was new to the school the previous Easter so I used the grades they had scored on previous papers they had done under exam conditions, along with their target grades - and kept half an eye on their KS2 level as well!
As we were doing Foundation the highest possible grade was a C and they nearly all got that as their Maximum grade.
None said that they were unhappy with them and interestingly all of them picked their 'Maximum' envelope.
I shall be doing it again this year - envelopes at the ready!
Will be really interested to hear how you get on with it.