Working out the classification

These past few weeks, my time has been taken up by the classification of students.  As from next month, my year 9's will be starting their year 10 and as per school practice, I will be following them until the end of year 11.

One of the tasks which I had to do was to classify the students for year 10. It has involved a lot of work, but luckily, I am now ready. The basic subjects used to classify the students are Maths, Maltese, English and Physics. However, in a couple of cases, I also used my discretion. After a year chasing them up and down, I know the students quite well by now. I know their behaviour and attitudes. I know who should be in class with and who should not. Apart from being classified for the whole class,  students are also set for maths, maltese, english and physics,  a foreign language (either German, Irtalian, French or Spanish), PSCD, and two options.

The classification, done on excel, yielded interesting aspects, which were to be expected. One of them was that those who had spent the whole year laughing and chattering in class, did very badly indeed. Some went down by two or three classes. Those who put an effort, performed very well and went in better classes. I had been alerting my students that the classification would be done by marks since March and I had been urging them to study and prepare for the exams. Some started laughing in my face! Well, now it is really a case of what you sow, you reap!

So, I was very satisfied with the outcome and I am looking forward to seeing the looks on my students' faces, when I will call them out for their new class come the 25th September!

Creating the Schools our Children Need

Last month, I was approached by a Maltese magazine to write a book review of a recent book which is related to education. I accepted the invitation, and decided to write about Dylan Wiliam's recent book, which has the title of 'Creating the Schools Our Children Need'.

The process of preparing for the half yearly exams

These past weeks have proved to be a long stretch. There are so many things to do! So it has boiled down to prioritising.

Exams start on the 12th February and I have been extra busy. I had to do the exam schedules, prepare the special classes for each sessions, do the class lists also for each session... the list seemed infinite. Luckily, I managed to finish everything off last Friday. Tomorrow morning I will go to school to print out everything. The next process is to stick the class lists on designated boards in the corridor, so that all the students will know their room allocation for each and every exam.

My plans for this week are that I should finish sorting out the half yearly papers. These need to be counted and put into jackets. Then, they have to be transported to my office...to be put under lock and key in my office. All exam scripts will then see the light of the day on the exam day itself.

This week is also important because the Bishop will be visiting our school, as part of the pastoral visit that he is doing at the village where our school is situated. Another blog about this important event will follow later on this week!

Back to school - Term 2

Today was my first day back at school. This was because I spent the first week of term at home. I contracted a very harsh version of the flu which confined me to my bed.

My first  day was extremely hectic. I had to deal with all sorts of mini-crises, with the  main one being the fact that some students took a long holidays from everything related to school work and did absolutely no homework whatsoever! The baying of angry teachers was incessant!

I also put up the half yearly exam timetable on the board, and it was quickly taken over by the well-meaning students who are now fast counting the days to the exams. Exams start on the 12th February, so they are less than four weeks away.

Another student was running during the break and he fell and hurt his leg. He came to my office surrounded by other boys, who were enjoying the chaos, that such an event brings.

All in all it was a very nice day, full of normal recurring things, which was only marred by the bad weather and excessive cold!

The view from my office today