Parents’ evening was very much as I described last week; a mainly positive experience for all involved with the focus on collaboration. With the Easter break coming up at the end of this week it’s important to be clear about what needs priority in terms of consolidation and revision. It’s something of a different experience for our year 12 students with the new examination system, as the AS exams have largely gone to be replaced by a two year linear course. There will still be rigorous internal exams and these are important in two ways. First of all they will require the students to learn subject matter and approaches to examinations and this will have the knock on of embedding learning for next year. Secondly they need to be passed to progress on to year 13!
The approach of Easter always makes me reminisce about my grandparents’ in their small village of Cymau in North East Wales. It was an annual Easter break to go and stay with them and I’ll be revisiting some of the flavour of these in assemblies this week. In many ways it’s a slice of social and cultural history which literally belongs to another era – my grandfather (or Taid in Welsh) was born in Victoria’s reign and spent 51 years in coal mining. He was one of fourteen children and didn’t have a phone or a television until he was in his 60’s. We’ll see what the students make of it.
Three of our students took part in the Cambridge University Sixth Form Law Conference last week and had a great time. They stayed in Cambridge colleges for three nights and had a varied programme which included lectures by leading academics, workshops with practising lawyers and a debate in the world famous Cambridge Union. At least one of the students who attended has decided that a career in law is now a top priority.
‘Line of Duty’ is as compelling as ever and Jason Watkins didn't last long did he? How can Roz Huntley keep the investigators at bay for four more episodes? And the epic interrogation scenes have started; the one last night was ten minutes long and it's good that TV drama is still prepared to risk that sort of language and nuance rich drama.
The blog will now take a break for a couple of weeks. Happy Easter to students, parents, teachers and anyone else who stumbles across the site.
