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Life after levels

11/13/2014

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As a whole school, the decision was made to no longer use levels as of this academic year and heads of department were given time in the summer term to devise their own "skills ladders". Although we haven't yet finalised the school tracking system, we wanted to ensure we could clearly evidence progress, relative to each student's starting point. I have to admit, I found this an exciting opportunity to produce a meaningful system for our students and staff and to shrug off the shackles of levels!

For each student, staff have their target grade in mind, based on KS2 data. Although this is not shared with Key Stage 3 students, it offers staff an idea of ability and long term minimum goal.
For our skills ladder, we created five stages, working back from GCSE to determine the skills we expect students to develop over the course of Key Stage 3. 
We have also overhauled schemes of work to take into account changes to languages over the next few years. The stages of the skills ladder are interwoven into the new schemes of work to ensure that students have ample opportunity to improve each skill and make good progress.
Students have six assessments each year, three of which test listening and reading and these are linked to the stages on the skills ladder.  After each assessment, students fill in an assessment tracker in their exercise books in order to identify their strengths and area for improvement.
Long-term, we will be using our school data system (BromCom) to track how well students develop across the five stages but the software isn't quite there yet. 
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In addition to listening and reading, all students in KS3 complete at least three formal writing or speaking assessments throughout the year.
We are now using a marking scheme which is similar to GCSE and students receive a mark out of 40. We would expect to see students attain an increased mark throughout each year and across the whole Key Stage.
At KS3, we wouldn't realistically expect students to achieve 40/40 but the mark scheme is designed to continue to be used at GCSE in order to track progress across their whole MFL experience at secondary school.   
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We have identified targets for three bands of students (based loosely on what we knew from levels and how we would expect students to perform throughout each year) so that we can identify both under-performance and excellence.

If a student has a target grade of A, for example, then we would expect them to be achieving Gold by the end of year. If they are not, we can see they are not progressing as we would like and consider why this may be for that individual. Until BromCom is fully developed, we will continue to use a spread sheet to track how students are doing. 

We are currently moderating the first sets of assessment to ensure staff feel confident interpreting and applying the mark scheme.  
Students have responded very positively to the gold, silver and bronze system, most noticeably year 9 who have worked with levels for the longest. There are things we will probably tweak over time, as it is not yet a perfect system, but so far feedback from staff and students has been very positive. 

DOWNLOAD skills ladder
DOWNLOAD writing mark scheme
DOWNLOAD speaking mark scheme
DOWNLOAD target thresholds
DOWNLOAD Bronze, silver, gold boundaries
DOWNLOAD student tracking sheets
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Language games and songsĀ 

11/2/2014

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Games, songs and conversation practice for a variety of languages. 

http://www.hello-world.com/index.php/?translate=English
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Promoting independent learning with question cards

10/18/2014

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Not a revolutionary idea but something which has been successful with my pupils. Give each pupil a question card, this allows them to only ask one question per lesson. If they ask a question you take their card away from them. Along with the question cards, promote 'Brain, Book, Buddy, Boss.' Pupils will find it difficult at first, but soon enough they will be desperate to keep hold of their card and will want to discover the answer themselves rather than asking you. It helps if you offer a reward for pupils who keep their card.
question_cards.docx
File Size: 35 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

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Spot the difference

10/14/2014

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I had the pleasure of hearing Rachel Hawkes a couple of weeks ago and one of the teaching ideas she mentioned to encourage discussion was spot the difference tasks. I have since been searching for them on pinterest and have collated them on a power point. Enjoy!
DOWNLOAD

   

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Days of the week spinner

10/14/2014

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I've made a French and a Spanish days of the week spinner, which you can download here if you would like it. You just need a split pin to attach the second circle and spin away. : )
Download French
Download Spanish 

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Marking bookmarks

7/8/2014

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Last year we introduced bookmarks for all students to make it easier to see which section of their book needed marking. On one side we had the levels criteria and there was key language on the other. We have now updated the bookmarks, removed levels and replaced them with a marking key. Our students use purple pen to respond to marking and all the marking statements require students to produce further work or to reflect in more detail. You can download them below.

Spanish bookmark template
French bookmark template


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Supporting students in MFL

6/24/2014

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A useful site aimed at supporting students with areas of improvement in MFL. http://supportinmfl.wordpress.com
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The shopping game

4/26/2014

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This Easter has been a lovely break, spent with my own children and one of the games we have  played regularly was 'shopping list' by Orchard.
My teacher brain couldn't help but notice how well this would work for MFL so I have made a German version for revising some of the foundation items which often come up.
The rules
Each player (maximum 5) has a board with a shopping list and trolley. The smaller playing cards are cut up and spread out in from of the player, face down. Players then take it in turns to turn one card at a time. If the item is on their list, they put it into their trolley. The first player to complete their list wins!

DOWNLOAD German version

DOWNLOAD Spanish version
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Spanish speaking mat

3/12/2014

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A new chat mat to support group talk.
DOWNLOAD
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Happy families

3/11/2014

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Happy families is a group speaking game, which allows students to practise some core vocabulary whilst forming questions and statements.
There are four cards in a set (or family) and students need to collect all four of the same card, to win one point. All cards are dealt out as equally as possible and player one asks for a card matching one they are already holding. The player must already hold one of that family. Obviously this would be in the TL of the classroom, but an example below.
Player one "John, I need Boris the baker. Do you have Boris the baker?"
If John has any of those cards he must hand them over to player one. Player one then gets to ask someone else the same question. If the next person asked again has a card, they hand it over. If they do not, then it is their turn to ask someone of their choice about something they need. 
As players form sets of 4 they place them face down on the table and the winner is the player with the most sets.
You can download the ones I have already made below.

German jobs
Spanish animals
Spanish quantities  

Variation - Go Fish
This is very similar, but players only start with 5 cards and the spare cards are placed in the centre. If the person asked does not hold any of the cards in question, then they tell the other to "Go fish" and the player must pick up a card. If the player happens to draw a card of the type asked for, they must show it to the other players and then have another turn. However, if the card is different then it becomes the next player's turn. It is the player who said "Go fish" who goes next.
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    Karen Whitehead

    I have been teaching languages for 13 years. I enjoy finding and developing new ways to engage students with their learning. This page is designed for sharing anything and everything that may be of use to others. Enjoy!

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