Welcome back, we hope everyone had a great October week. We are delighted to be back in what promises to be a busy time between now and Christmas.
Today we welcomed a student teacher to Modern Languages, Caitlin Stuart joins us from the University of Strathclyde and we look forward to working with her and wish her a long and happy career.
Next week is S5/6 Parents’ Night. Parents should book appointments via Parents’ Booking online. It will be lovely to meet with parents in person, the first time since 2020 ! S4 Parents’ Night takes place on Thursday 10th. More information will follow with the S4 tracking reports which are due out soon.
S1 English will soon be working towards their first individual presentation. These skills are valuable for our young people as they prepare for the world of work and life beyond school. This can be a nerve racking experience despite the fact all of our young people are very experienced in presenting in Primary School. We ask that you work with us to support your young person to develop these skills, please reassure them that we will support them through their presentation, we all want them to succeed. Please feel free to contact me via Mr Phairs, PTPS if this is causing undue stress or anxiety.
S2 English classes are currently working on Newspapers learning about the skills and knowledge of the world of journalism. We are having great fun using puns, alliteration and rhyme to create headlines ! We will explore opinion and bias as well as considering layout and the impact this has on the finished newspaper article.
S4 N4 classes are continuing to develop their skills and knowledge of Reading in order to undertake the N4 Reading assessment which is required to pass the N4 English and Literacy award. Mrs Burton and Ms Colllins have been delighted with the progress made in writing. Please support us by ensuring the young people in these classes are in school as much as possible in order to keep the learning moving.
S4 N5 classes are working towards their Progress Assessment at the end of next month. Classes are working on the Scottish text “Sailmaker” by Alan Spence. Supported Study will be available every Wednesday after school at 3:45pm-4:45pm. There will be a practice Scottish text assessment on Friday 11th November.
Higher Classes are moving on to look at Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation which is the first paper in the exam. This is the part of the paper our young people generally indicate they find difficult however our results analysis shows they do well with this paper. Regular reading of a quality newspaper and exposure to good quality documentaries can help with the analysis and dealing with the subject matter of this paper. There are also great materials available on Scholar and Achieve which young people all have access to. Supported Study will start this Thursday in the department.
S3 English Classes will be working between the Added Value Unit which teaches young people to evaluate different sources on a subject of their choice. As well as allowing young people to develop their research and note-making skills this unit is invaluable in teaching how sources are created and how language and layout can be used to achieve different effects. In addition to this S3 will be embarking on a class novel ! The young people are all very excited to be studying a novel. Young people will use their novel to develop key skills such as paraphrasing and summarising, inference (working out the implied meaning in text), metalinguistics (the skills to dela with new/unfamiliar vocabulary), visualisation which supports young people to keep notes in a visual way, as well helping young people to find clues in a text to determine what is coming next and finally helping young people to explain what the theme of a text is by examining the events of the text. Please support us in this by asking your young person what they are reading and asking questions which help them to think about the book. This all helps to build up the critical thinking skills which are key to success in English.
As ever we thank you for working with us to support your young person as they strive to achieve their best. We look forward to meeting all of our parents/carers over the course of this year.
Mrs Burton
Faculty Head – Language and Literacy.
