Morning all! It was lovely to meet you yesterday, and I'm sure the next year will be plenty o' fun. I thought I'd draw your attention to some of the things that we covered yesterday, and let you know generally how I operate my classes.
First up - the seating in there made me ROFL. I'll move you, and I make you this bet now; you'll end up having more interesting, in depth conversations about the text with people you might not normally chat to then if I just parked you with your mates. If that's not true by Christmas, I'll bring in more Minstrels then you could conceivably eat. And then I'll eat them all myself, because you'll have all lost.
Second - the book. I recommend picking up your own copy of the text, so you can annotate and scrawl and put post it notes all over (you'll be given a clean copy for the exam). ) Different types of study guide are available, too, and it would be useful if between you you all picked up a variety (although only buy one each, obvs), so could swap them around between yourselves. I'm aware that I'm suggesting buying a few books here, so if your pocket money will only stretch to a few Beyblades, then check out any number of the online study guides, which rock in at £0.00. I'll put this bluntly: kids who read study guides get miles more marks then kids who don't. For the kids who are really gunning for the top end stuff, then I recommend this; we'll be using extracts from it in lessons, and it's the one that will make your brain hurt the most. If you want to pick up a copy, I thoroughly recommend the £0.01 option, where you only pay for postage.
Third - reading. I'll be pushing reading non-stop. What often happens is kids often drop off reading round about year 9, and it often doesn't get picked up again. I'll release a recommended reading list for Y11 as soon as I've had a chat with Mrs Cassidy - no point releasing a list of books that the library might not have. Since this is extra curricular, I'll aim to reward this as much as I can - watch this space.
Fourth - Mabel wins the inaugural 'Prize of Skillness', for leading the discussion on the characters. We'll work on ways to lead these discussions (what questions to ask, how to get people involved and so on), and the majority of people will have done one by Christmas. The prize will be whatever confectionery I can steal from Eatherington's desk.
Finally - I'll host as much as I can here - course overviews, an anonymous markbook, resources... you name it. Any particular requests, then let me know.
Any questions / problems, then send them to my school email address. Don't bother with the Gmail one as that never gets checked.
Cheers!
P.S - test on Chapters 1-8 on Monday. Oof.
