Report to the Parents' Society asking for 'extra' equipment and activities

Riyadh Abdulla 10J4 Writing 2 – Analytical (analyse, review, comment) Teacher – Mrs Monaghan

‘A new year for new goals’....................................................................................... 3

Technical Issues.................................................................................................... 4

Exams and Qualifications......................................................................................... 6

Curricular Goals....................................................................................................... 9

This academic year Beardwood Humanities College has witnessed several significant improvements in the way it operates. One of the most recent, yet noticeable improvement, is the way in which Beardwood has demonstrated that learning can genuinely be fun yet intriguing for pupils at the same time. Evidence of such success is publicized every half-term in ‘Humanities Day’. A fantastic suggestion submitted and accepted inside last year’s report.

These opportunities, along numerous others, would have ceased to exist without the charitable support of the Parents’ society. In order to build on and continue these pleasing improvements, please read this year’s report and, as you are reading, consider the potential alterations Beardwood Humanities College can have. Together for excellence!

Laptops:

Over half of the laptops’ finger pads are badly damaged with the majority either ‘sticking out’, broken or even missing. Although we know that pupils are the root of this problem, it is impossible to identify the culprit(s) beyond mere suspicion due to the lack of evidence provided.

However, this can be prevented.

As of September 2008, pupils will be obliged to use mice whilst working on the laptops. The use of mice will replace the present use of the finger pad. This will stop further damage being inflicted, hence preventing costly repairs in the future.

Our IT technicians recommend the ‘Mikomi 5 Button Optical Mouse’, which is a compact and straightforward enough mouse for any pupil to use and only costs £4.99. Sixty mice are required for extension rooms A1 and A2, which can both hold up to 30 pupils and run simultaneously. Therefore the total cost of the mice is approximately £300.

If this is successful, our IT technicians will begin to repair the broken laptops’ finger pads to ensure that health and safety at Beardwood is kept at its optimum standard. We predict that these repairs will cost around £500.

To insure that this problem does not persist, any person caught abusing the school’s systems after September 2008 will face heavy sanction. To reinforce this, posters presenting the consequences for such acts will be clearly displayed in the extension and IT rooms.

Like every year, surplus money would be saved until enough is accumulated and this year, it has ...

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Like every year, surplus money would be saved until enough is accumulated and this year, it has been decided that this money will be used to purchase new laptops/iMac computers to aid pupils with their many different productions which necessitate the use of such sophisticated technology.

Network Issues:

We’ve always had an issue with the school network is becoming congested with unnecessary files and folders. For this reason, we’ve decided on a scheme which may prevent this from happening.

Disk quotas (the amount of space one can store on a computer drive) are set up for use from this September. Students in years 7-9 are will be issued with a quota of 20mb, which is enough for a complete year’s work. The majority of year 10 and 11 students, who are undertaking coursework intensive courses such as Media Studies, will have their quota increased to 65mb in order to facilitate the extra amount of work. The option ICT group taking the OCR National course will have their quota increased to 100mb to compliment the extensive amount of work the course requires.

However, this schematic approach will cause problems if a pupil finds the disk space they have been provided with of insufficient size. This is because we are using the ‘one time option approach’. This means that if a pupil asks for a higher quota, their current quota, which contains their work, would be formatted during the increase. This is because the data will have to overwrite itself in order for the extra disk space to take effect.

It is therefore essential that a new, external server is set up to freely allow IT teachers and technicians the flexibility of increasing and decreasing the size of quotas. After a long discussion, it has been decided that the ideal server to purchase is ‘Dell PowerEdge T105’, which costs £149 and is endorsed by Dell.

After installing the new server, students will be even more encouraged to effectively use their quota effectively because extra space will cost money. This is done to ensure that requests for extra space will be genuine.

ECDL:

Thanks to your support last year, we have been able to successfully enter and examine candidates on the ECDL level 2 Qualification. The results for the practical units have been pleasing so far.

However, after candidates had been examined on the compulsory units Mr Murden and other ICT teachers have run into an unexpected dilemma which requires the financial aid of Beardwood associates.

Unfortunately, in order for candidates to complete the full ECDL Qualification, it is compulsory to take the ‘extra’ ECDL unit (formally known as ‘Unit E’). However, candidates cannot be examined on this unit yet because, according to ECDL, Beardwood is not ‘certified’ to do so. After corresponding with ECDL and discussing this, we were finally informed about the entry cost. The cost for each candidate for this unit (hence, the complete qualification) is £3. There are at present 34 candidates which we hope to enter for this exam from the option ICT OCR National group; making the overall cost £102.

Exam Resources:

Exam resources are still causing difficulties this year, particularly in Mathematics. Although it is generally a candidate’s own fault if they forget their equipment for an examination, there are unavoidable cases. Failing to provide the candidate with the equipment required would not only result in the failure of the pupil to achieve their optimum potential but will also mean that Beardwood, as a school, would have to take the burden of the pupil’s result, leading to third-party and parental complaints.

We are currently in need of protractors, compasses, tracing paper and scientific calculators. Our crucial aim, though, is to provide higher level candidates the access to a scientific calculator during their Section B calculator paper. We must, after all, be delighted with our pupils’ exceptional effort made, and the minimum we can do is appreciate that forgetfulness is natural - especially during the stressful exam period.

Currently, 74 candidates will be entered for the higher modules and terminal paper; with their first exam(s) scheduled in January 2009. We clearly do not expect the majority of candidates to forget their scientific calculators thus purchasing 20 is appropriate as it will act as a safety net, in-case a lot of candidates happen to forget their calculators. These calculators will be kept and used for other examination, including KS3 Maths and Science SATS.

A calculator which generally received a positive feedback from many scholars is the Casio fx-83-ES. The most distinctive feature that was commented on was how ‘user-friendly’ it is. This was clearly the case when Mathematics teachers observed students who have borrowed this calculator from them during lesson. The results obviously met the initial claims as teachers commented that pupils used it ‘confidently’. This is a trait that will prove useful, especially under the intense exam heat.

Each calculator will cost £4.99 as a promotion for ‘bulk buy’, which will overall equate to approximately £100. The other equipment, listed above, can easily be obtained by an extra £20.

Hosted curricular activities:

This year, ‘Humanities Day’, one of last year’s accepted propositions which you gladly supported has been established as a successful way of raising our pupils’ awareness of everyday contemporary issues such as drugs and safe sex.

However this year it has been decided that an English Language appreciation class should be introduced seeing as English Language is the key area of under-achievement. These classes will mainly target D grade candidates who demonstrate C grade potential at times, but need that further ‘push’ to achieve a C in their final Foundation tier English Language exam. Likely opening times will be during lunch and, mainly, afterschool. This is to ensure that students are given flexibility when creating their revision timetable. Making this method not only a superior stress reliever but also excellent for making students feel mature and independent in relation to their studies.

To make this curricular activity more interactive, and therefore fun, material produced throughout the extension sessions, especially written work implementing any of the three writing triplets, can be potentially used for Speaking and Listening assessment(s), giving pupils an opportunity to demonstrate their complete potential with competence because, unlike during normal lessons - performances are going to be in smaller groups to minimise pressure.

To fully accomplish this success, pupils will require the right equipment. Each pupil requires an English (Letts) revision guide. These guides will be used to tutor pupils during the lessons and are also expected to be used for post-classroom revision. Each guide will cost £5 and 25 pupils are predicted to join; thus the overall cost of the books is £125.

In order to ensure that books are returned in good condition, pupils are expected to pay a £5 deposit. If any of the following problems arise, deposits will not be returned:

Pupil fails to return the book;
Pupil wants to keep the book for any reason;
Pupil fails to return the book in decent condition (i.e. notes are written on pages, or large extracts highlighted).

Reading club, the Library and the book-fair:

Pupils, as always, have not been intrigued by the supply of books the library has to offer. Asking a stratified sample by year group of pupils revealed why. Books were split into two distinctive categories: ‘too complex’ or ‘too easy’, with a few other participants evidently questioning the existence of this facility! A majority, though, have suggested that the library has ought to improve its supply of ‘Sci-fi/thriller’ fiction narratives as opposed to the current History and Political books, if any improvements in terms of reading are to be witnessed at all.

In order to give pupils a chance to acquire a book which would interest them, Mrs Monaghan, The Head of Humanities, will hold a book-fair. It will open during lunch time and looked after by keen Year 10 pupils from Mrs Monaghan’s English class.

In order to enhance reading in Beardwood, an important skill in life to nurture, a sum of £400 is obligatory to cover the cost of the books’ hire.

To support reading further, students, as they purchase items, will be referred to the ‘reading club’, which is held in Mrs Gaughan’s room. If successful, this link will not only improve the lingual skill of participating pupils but will also benefit all areas of their curriculum.