We have made a few changes to start times for the Diamond Jubilee Revision these can be viewed here
Arrive early, with food and water, no need to wear uniform.
Sign in at Block 9
Diamond Jubilee Revision Start times
We have made a few changes to start times for the Diamond Jubilee Revision these can be viewed here
Arrive early, with food and water, no need to wear uniform.
Sign in at Block 9
Diamond Jubilee Revision
Check the times on the postcard we sent you last week. Let us know if there is a problem with your attendance.
English Seminars today!
Use these excellent Masterclass notes to help you prepare for your English exam tomorrow.
Unit 1 Higher paper seminar – slides
Here are the slides from a short seminar on the Unit 1 Higher paper today. Very basic overview of some of the skills required for each question on the paper. Happy revising and protect yourselves from the sun by staying inside to revise!
Quick tip: answering a question on language
Types of language to identify and explore in the language question of Unit 1.
The exam board identified ‘vivid language’ and ‘language devices’ as the best types of quote to choose to show success in the language question of your Unit 1 exam. Of course, you also need to explore the effects and connotations of these language choices too.
Vivid language should be anything that is descriptive and paints a picture for you: this means you should identify adjectives, adverbs as well as interesting verbs and nouns. Exploring extended noun phrases will be key to success here (e.g., ‘decrepit old ferry boat’ as opposed to just the noun ‘boat’; the noun is extended by one or more adjectives to create a more vivid and developed image).
Language devices that you might look for could include: alliteration, similes, metaphors, antithesis, short sentences, lengthy sentences, varied sentence lengths, statistics and numbers, direct speech/quotation, exclamations, emotive language, choice of person or tense, direct address or personal pronouns, lists of three, imperative verbs, modal verbs, declarative statements or proper nouns. And there are many more devices that you could identify beyond these too!
Of course, identifying language is only half the job. You also need to make sure that you explore the effect of these language choices with sufficient detail too.
Some light reading for Unit 1 revision
Reading some articles from the web is a good way to prepare for both sections of the Unit 1 exam: you can practise your retrieval, understanding and analysis for all of the questions in Section A (Reading); you can also model your own writing on some of these for Section B (Writing).
Here are some good articles from the news this week:
In the Daily Mail today, Suzanne Moore crafts an argument against the Monarchy.
Stuart Heritage’s short round-ups of the Eurovision semi-finals both informed and explained how it all happened.
Likewise, this article from the BBC informs and explains the risks of sports injuries.
Also from the BBC, Rob Cameron writes an article informing and describing the moments a leading Nazi was killed during World War II.
Have a look at those; analyse them, summarise them, pick out language, look at presentational devices, steal some of the ideas or features for your own writing. I’ll post some more links up later.
Unit 1 Higher – mining source 3 for language
Travel writing seems have been a theme in Source 3 over the past couple of years.
Source 3 of the Higher Unit 1 paper seems to have been a descriptive piece of non-fiction travel writing, written in the first person. If we are to assume that Tuesday’s exam follows a similar pattern, it will be worth having a look at extracts of travel writing to get used to picking out language (remember: look for vivid language and language devices) and analysing its effect.
With this in mind, here are some examples of interesting and descriptive travel writing, as collected by The Daily Telegraph.
Even if the Source 3 isn’t a piece of travel writing on Tuesday, it will still be really good practice and preparation to look at well-written, descriptive writing such as this.
Enjoy!
Exams in hot weather
Please make sure you are preparing for the current exams conditions. It is very hot at the moment and therefore you should be drinking lots and lots of water at home before coming to school. Bring a bottle of water with you and keep this in the fridge until you leave for school to keep it fresh (do this now). Have a healthy meal before leaving also, remember the assembly we did on this? You need to bring full uniform with you to each exam. You will be advised before entering the examination room if you are able to remove ties etc but you must have full uniform with you.
Although the weather is really lush at the moment next week is very busy for you all so make sure you plan your revision well. You will have a very long summer to relax in the sunshine after you have finished your exams and before you start college!
There is nothing worse than taking an exam sun-burnt!
P.S. Do you really need to wear a t-shirt under your school shirt today?
Dance Nutcracker
"nutcracker" will be showing in the wave Thursday 24th May at 3pm" last chance to see dance professional work.
Need help with your English for tmrw?
GCSEPod
GCSEPod has over 2500 GCSE specific podcasts which you can watch online on a school or home computer or download to play later on your iPod, iPhone, Blackberry or Android device. You can navigate the chapters to focus on specific areas, learn about each subject with audio, text and images and find out exactly which podcasts you need to prepare for forthcoming exams.
GCSEPod is FREE OF CHARGE to all Wildern School students and staff.
How to access:
1) Click the GCSEPod logo above to go to the GCSEPod registration and login page
2) Register using your School email address
3) After clicking ‘Sign up’, go to your School email account and find the email sent from GCSEPod. Click the activation link in the email and you will be automatically logged in
4) Once logged in you can view any of the podcasts by searching by subject or go to the ‘Prepare for my next exam’ area to find out exactly which podcasts are relevant to your exams
Do you have an Apple, Blackberry or Android device? If you want to download a podcast for your device, click one of these buttons:
Your podcast link will be added to your GCSEPod ‘My Downloads’ area. When you get home, login to GCSEPod on your home computer and download your podcast from the ‘My Downloads’ area.
44 Days
Prom is only 44 days away! Don't waste anytime now. Make sure you are revising hard even though the sun has come out!
iMedia
Pupils below need to come in and finish off and upload their iMedia Comic Strip work - it is litearlly only 15-30 mins work.
11A1
- Lydia Cross
- Kim Handy
- Callum Lombard
- Tom Cleary (2nd page of comic)
- Lucy (need to upload Unit 2)
- Nidhi (need to upload Unit 2)
- Declan Obrien
- Ben Plumley
11C1
- Tom Watson (upload level 2 and 3)
- Scott Archer
- Micheal GeorgieV
- Joel Kidd
- Matt Flood
- Chris Mason
- Jack Turner
- Callum Thorpe
- Annabelle Skinner
English Lit notes
Use these to help, also look below for the English Materclass notes posted earlier.
First big exam underway
Year 11 a little reminder that you need to be at your exam 10 mins before the start time and also that you need to arrive knowing their seat numbers.
There were too many of you arriving late/unprepared this morning.
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