Senior revision time

Aftert the school exams it was apparent that the L2 Chemistry students are not yet anywhere near ready for their end of year external exams.

In repsonse to this I decided to drop the final internal that was slated, Oxidation and Reduction, in favour of spending the remaining class time on revision of the content of the external standards.

In class time students are allowed to choose their own specific area of the course to concentrate their revision. To aid and focus them at the start of each lesson I circulate in the class and ask them to give me their personal topic or success criteria for the hour they have in the classroom. Making them choose one specific thing to master in the hour seems to improve their focus for their learning and help break down the seemingly impossible task into smaller bits that are possible.

Solubility

Teaching solubility to L2Chem a student asked to see an example of an experiment I was telling them about. With consultation with SGSS we found an example of a non-polar substance requiring a non-polar solute to dissolve it.

The students were happy to be able to see all the range of polar and non-polar subtances acting as solvents and solutes as it rounded out their learning experience.

L2Chem start to year

I spent the first three weeks of the L2 Chemistry course reteaching ideas from L1 Science. It was brought home to me last year how unprepared some of the students are for L2, and how loose the entry criteria are to get into the class. I pretested and then re-tested the students. There was an improvement, but even so many students are still going to need a lot of extra support.

I have started the year with a letter home to all parents introducing myself and ensuring that they are aware that their student will have to work consistently all year to have a successful year in Chemistry. I also sent the letter by post to a few parents to ensure equity.

A big part of the homework this year is online revision and testing using the website BestChoice. I explained the point of this to parents and asked to be informed if this would be an issue so that I could make alternative arrangements for their child. I have at least one student for whom this will be an issue and have already discussed it with them. They are happy to come in to the tutorial time and have access to laptops then so they don't miss out on the learning opportunity.

Rethinking the programme

The formative for the Redox assessment has come back showing the students are not ready for the summative. I think I will need to reteach aspects, and give a lot more practice before many of the students are ready.
Coupled with the need for a number of them to repeat the other internals I am doubting if I will be able to get through the high number of credits that were initially planned. I have already removed a number of students from the final external assessment but now I am wondering if there will be enough time for the students who have been planning to do that assessment to complete it.