Students received their first HoWLs grades recently. HoWLs are our Habits of Work and Learning: Work Hard, Get Smart, Be Kind. It’s been a great chance to celebrate students and overall everyone found something to be proud about when they saw their grades. However, it doesn’t stop there…
Firstly, we analysed these grades to find patterns in the data.
We reflected on what each student could do to improve and everyone made pledges so these improvements could be put into action. We will be checking in on those pledges regularly to ensure students don’t forget.
X27 students have had to self-isolate and have been able to continue their education online through Google Classroom and Google Meet hangouts. In our hangouts, crew continued our HoWLs analysis from the comfort of their own homes!
We worked on our crew narrative, identifying the key areas we need to improve on as a crew and focussed on the students who might need a bit of extra support to raise their grades. We decided that as a crew we should all focus on improving ‘Get Smart’ grades. ‘Get Smart’ is all about taking responsibility for your learning by asking questions, seeking help and improving your work. In our hangout this morning we discussed ideas for what they could do to ‘Get Smart’ in all the different subjects when they are at home…
- Spanish: George told us all about Duolingo which is an app to help you learn languages and Oscar told us he has been using Linguascope which is a similar idea.
- Maths: Students can go on Hegarty Maths and watch videos and take quizzes on any topic that they need extra help with. Oscar showed us how he using the ‘Memri’ quiz which quizzes you on questions that you have already done before to help you remember old topics.
- Hums: We spoke about how you could read around the topics to find out more – could be articles from newspapers or books that are relevant. Another idea was talking to our family and friends about what you are learning to find out their ideas and experiences, particularly as students are currently learning about Doncaster’s history and the history of the mining and the miners’ strikes. Ruby told us that her grandad was a miner so he would be a fantastic person to ask!
- Science: Someone suggested searching the internet to learn more about topics in science. Youtube and Clickview videos would also be a good resource for this.
- Art: Practicing at home! Alysia spoke about how some people say they ‘can’t do art’ but all they would need to do is practice and try out the different techniques they learned at school. I really agree with this and I believe that every student has the ability to create beautiful art.
I am challenging crew this week to try out one of these ideas for ‘Get Smart’ and they will feedback next week on ‘Thoughtful Thursday’ to discuss what they tried out and how it helped them. I’m looking forward to seeing them all in person again tomorrow!