GCSE grades to change to help bosses select brightest pupils

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/gcse-grades-to-change-to-help-bosses-select-brightest-pupils-8916476.html

 

The article is about how the gcse grading scheme is changing, as you get marked from 1 to 9 so that employers can spot the 'high-flying pupils'. This means that the exams will be changed to make them harder and seen as more respectable. The students will be expected to take the English bacculaureate - science, english, maths, history and a language. This will broaden their choices. They expect to see a "greater differentiation” between students.

 "The change comes in the wake of up to 40 per cent of pupils in some exams, notably in science, achieving top grade A* or A grade passes, " - By changing this it brings out more competition between students, and may cause them to be upset or disappointed by their grade.

 

 

Should children have best friends at school?

An article about how children shouldn't have best friends because it causes them to fall out with people, and feel ganged up and disappinted.


(from the article- '
A south London school has recommended that younger pupils try not to have best friends, and should have lots of good friends instead. Ben Thomas, headmaster of Thomas's school, Battersea, London, explained that cultivating a wide range of good friends can be healthier than becoming too possessive over just one and avoid painful episodes of falling out.
Did you have a best friend at school? Did you spend all your time with just one pal, only to be devastated when they teamed up with somebody else? Do you keep in touch with your first best friend, or did your lives drift apart? Can you ever match that first childhood bond? Tell us all about your first BFF (best friend forever).

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/02/best-friend-at-school



Schools must take account of girls' precarious friendships

'. These little girls, soon to face the crucial rite of passage to big school, seem bewildered by the reality of having friends. Asked about the positives of friendship, they have talked instead about the unhappiness it can bring. "Friends can be bullies to your other friends because they don't want you to be with them," says Naomi.'

'The dynamics change with greater maturity at secondary school, George notes. "One of the girls said that when she got to her new school she looked around and saw who the noisy group were, and kept away. Girls are better able to assess what's going on as they get older, they can see the potential for destructive situations, so they develop skills to make sure the painful things don't happen. They're more careful about who they make friends with.'

This article is about how girls friendship groups can be very nasty, and people gang up on others and often make them excluded, but as they grow up they mature and pick wisely who their friends are.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/22/schools-beware-girls-friendships-precarious

Drama improves pupils' self-esteem.
 This article is about how drama boosts self-esteem, and how it teaches skills, and valuable lessons such as team work as they are able to listen and speak publically. It talks about how it makes people have an intrest in the arts. 'Researcher Helen Turner said: "Our research highlights several key educational issues: how to make school more enjoyable, how to provide learning environments where different talents are recognised and valued, how to make literacy more exciting, how to encourage and promote creativity, and how to ensure cultural entitlement. '
 

 

 http://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/oct/06/schools.primaryeducationhttp://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/oct/06/schools.primaryeducation

Education: all I learnt at school.

Education: all I learnt at school.

·        The happiest days of my life?  School and me. 

·        A hidden curriculum? What school taught me to be.

-Take some notes on the kinds of ideas you could include in the essay.

Was it the happiest days? How did it start, and end?

  Dimbleby+Barton - self esteem, how we compare ourselves, identification,  roles. (Friendship group, how they make you feel? how you compare yourself academically to people and physically. how you connect/identify with someone and what role you played in school within a class, and friendship group)

Ervin Goffman- with friends you may feel the need to 'perform'. 

How was self esteem built, and knocked. Why was it built-whom influenced this? Why was it knocked- Cooley's looking glass theory (reaction of others) and Myers + Myers ( behaviour that confirms and rejects). Who's opinion did you value? How did this change your behaviour?- Cooper and Smith- compliments. How did this build self esteem.

Lessons you learned, rogers- core self, how much you disclose and the gap of self esteem. How it relates to you and why?

Brimsham Green Secondary School. 2008-2013.

Tutor group-M

Yr 7- Everyone was close, friendship groups we're a lot bigger, groups of about 30.

Yr 11- Groups split, everyone had smaller friendship groups; 10 to a group.
It taught me to be aware, and not naive in this aspect. Everyone can change or not reveal their true self (Jo hari window). As you get older you see faults in peoples personalities or what they say, and it causes you to question it.

In lessons I learnt that to achieve higher, there was a form of competition and you had to strive to beat the person next to you. You felt the need to get higher than those around you or you would be put in a position where you felt bad about it or knew you could of done better. This taught me many lessons as in the work world you have to be prepaired to be disappointed.
 

School teaches you to be aware and independent as you have to take on your own load of work and complete it, it prepares you for later life and gives you access to learn new skills.

 

I am who I am

I am my family who support me,
And the pets I've had through my life.
I am that first A grade in chemistry.
I am that 'never gets the job'.
I am my friends who support me.
I am my nan who always believed in me.

I am who I am because of everyone.

Comms this week

This week in comms we looked at theorist who supported our ideas that we came up with in class.

Blumer and Katz- Uses and gratification theory.
They explore the gratification of popular culture. They say we use popular culture for..
Escapism
Person relationships
Person identity
Surveillance.

Dead white guys theory- Negative approach to high culture. It challenges it by the fact that it is classed as high culture and valued by white European men.

Umberto eco
"I speak through my clothes" he said fashion is part of someones identity.

We also spoke in more detail about Sub cultures or alternative cultures and why many people have negative things to say about it. Possibly because it is not the 'norm' or because of their rituals etc. They all have codes and practices and different greetings/language.

what culture is to me

Culture


I think culture is everything from art to food to music, but to an individual i believe it will only be certain things which they value, and what they are brought up around or made to think is culture, and that is what defines you.

Culture is what defines you, what interests you, and what makes you the person you are, whether it be high or popular culture.

This week in comms & culture

This week we discussed high culture, we learnt about the nineteenth century writer and critic Matthew Arnold, Arnold was famous for writing many series of essays about culture called  'Culture and Anarchy'. Arnold believed by educating the public it would stop Anarchy from appearing, he also said by having an appreciation for high culture it would stop social disorder.

We also looked at the 'Arts Canon' including the likes of Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven and many others, we discussed what makes them 'High culture'. We came up with the fact that they are so exclusive, they transcend beyond their time and because they are so inspirational that makes them this as only the 'elite' decides who is in this canon and how exclusive it is, as it is so hard to get your hands on this type of Art. Other people such as F R Levis, and Storey agreed with this concept, Storey even said "For something to be culturally worth while it has to be difficult". While F R Levis developed the literature canon, he believed difficult texts were humanising as you can engage with them.

Then we went on to think about popular culture as we thought about it's cultural practices and what makes it popular. Popular culture is 'popular' because it is easy to access and everyone can value it and be entertained by it and not at a high price.

Communication & culture (AS)

This week in communication and culture we learnt about meanings of key words and how they could have many different meanings such as culture (how you live), context (an explanation of text), representation ( speaking on behalf of someone), value (the cost of something), identity (to recognise someone), power (being in a stronger position than someone else), code (a system of words/figures), idiolect (the way you speak), sociolect (groups you belong to), dialect (structure of language you use) all of these can be interpreted differently by everyone. As things like these make up a person, everyone has different things that hold value to them, and different things represent them.


We also learnt about the process approach, and we realised how many ways you can communicate, as something as simple as an alarm clock communicates with you even though it is a one way communication. We saw within the process which was the sender, what was the message and who was the receiver. For example using an interpersonal communication (between 2 or more people): sender: Me, message:To meet someone (context: deciding to meet outside reception. Form: Verbal), Receiver: Friend.