With our current focus on aspects of Teaching and Learning as part of our Raising Achievement Strategy, questioning has been at the fore this week. Staff have been using questioning sequences to assess student progress, provoke thinking and deepen understanding.
Examples of this across the curriculum include Miss Bargewell’s Year 7 English class who were involved in Travel Writing. Miss Bargewell reports ‘Students were asked to agree or disagree with the statement ‘this advert would persuade me to go on holiday’ after watching ‘Simon the Ogre’ from Thomson. Through whole class questioning, all students offered an initial response to the statement. By using a combination of cold calling and probing, students developed their initial ideas and also built on the answers of others, sometimes challenging another student’s point of view! The general consensus was that the advert was not as effective as it could be because it ‘didn’t really have any words, only images’ which was a perfect introduction to writing our own advert voice overs.’
In Year 8 PE where students were playing volleyball, Mrs. Cheeseman reports ‘ Questioning with hands down approach was used to retrieve knowledge from previous lessons. We had covered dig and set hits in volleyball previously. Students were selected to tell and show key teaching points of the hits. Where appropriate they were asked to explain why they had given that answer. When introducing a new element of the game, serving, they were given time to discuss prior knowledge with a partner and then hands up was used to gauge confidence levels and prior knowledge.’
In Year 8 Art, Mrs. Hunter reports ‘Students were asked to look at the illustrations of Tim Burton before describing his style using keywords initially as individual work. Wider questions were then asked about similarities across several media showing his work both stop motion animation characters and his simple sketches. Students were asked what type of mood his work created. We then discussed how to achieve the same effect in our own work and broke this down into a 3 part simple process. We then discussed techniques and simple tips in which to achieve this in their own work. Individuals were targeted initially but then opportunities were opened up for those that felt we had missed anything additional in our summing up.’
In Year 8 DT where students were looking at mechanisms, Mr. Groves reports that he discussed with groups the uses of mechanisms in the wider world. Students were asked to give examples of where mechanisms might be used and how they would be used in those devices, machines or structures. The responses were wide ranging and thoughtful.
In Year 10 English where students were studying Act Two of ‘Macbeth’, Mrs. Wellock reports that ‘This week, we have been considering: How does Macbeth’s internal conflict and Lady Macbeth’s influence escalate following Duncan’s murder? Closed questions were used to retrieve key information from the play and a range of open ended questions including the key question above were used to deepen our understanding of the play.’
Finally in GCSE Business Studies and Computer Science, Mrs Sands reports that ‘As part of retrieval, students were asked to respond to a range of written questions which link to their forthcoming practice for the mock. Prompts were given for students who needed support and students were selected to give information before further questioning challenged students to answer in more detail.’
As part of our Quality Assurance, on Tuesday, one of our Governors visited and went into classes across the school to see questioning in action.
To mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January 2025 with the theme this year being ‘For a Better Future’, Mrs. Ennis has led assemblies with all year groups. Having shared information about the Holocaust, Mrs. Ennis talked about more recent genocides which have taken place before exploring how our young people can create a better future by challenging prejudice and discrimination and how they should never underestimate their capacity to make a positive difference.
In sporting news this week, the Year 8 boys football team played Ashville College with BHS finally winning on penalties with a BHS penalty converted and one of Ashville’s missing. The boys demonstrated excellent team commitment and spirit and showed great resilience as they came back from behind and secured the win!
It’s Year 8 Parent/Carer evening from 4-6.30p.m. next Wednesday (5th February). We’ll look forward to seeing you there.
Have a lovely weekend!