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Richard Ledingham

Friday 24 February 2006

I attended the S3 parents evening last night. It was nice to meet the parents of my third year class and to discuss with them my impressions of the class. It is a good class so the most repeated message of the night was doing rerally well and continue to improve. Having the pupils present is a brilliant idea...I cant begin to explain how nice it is to convey to the pupils themselves how you feel about their work and behaviour. For 99% this comes as a shock as they find out that you like them, enjoy the banter and appreciate the hard work that they are putting in...see kids we're not horrible at all! It is also nice to hear parents completely backing what the staff are saying and even more pleasing was the phrase, "do whatever you like to improve his/her work and we will back you up 100%". I know parents evenings are a lot of hassle for parents and staff but it really is a shame that there is only one a year. Perhaps electronic ommunication is the way to go. Just a quick email or text to say that Johnny is doing really well...or he needs to work a little harder....or go the whole way and let parents know that despite what he may say he does have homework or he does have a test tomorrow. Anyway the class were a lot more receptive to learning this morning and willing to work hard.

I also played the trade game yesterday with one of my fourth year classes. Despite the initial reluctance to trade anything they soon got into the swing of what to do. It is great fun and a really powerful learning tool to display the unequal distribution of wealth and raw materials.

Apart from my now ever so respectful third year class my only other lseeon today was my other fourth year class. They are one lesson behind the other class and will play the trade game when they return from work experience in a weeks time. Today we looked at a case study of the Ugandan coffee trade and Fairtrade. I managed to liberate some examples of coffee, tea and chocolate from the staff base and had a good discussion with this very friendly class. I also now know that my crit is a week today with the third years.

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