Grade 12 start exams next Tuesday and these run for the following 7 school days. With Grade 12 "out" and continuous assessment tasks for Grades 4 - 11 in a fortnight, attendance next week is likely to be sparse. With Grade 12 not at school then at the boys school Grade 10 and 11 are not likely to turn up for revision. So with older brothers staying home, smaller brothers stay home, and then sisters stay home and gradually only the teachers front up, and most of those slope off home at the earliest convenience.
End of term marks are made up of a CA mark, continuous assessment mark, from work completed in class or for homework or tests or quizzs etc over the term. The other part of the mark is a more formal exam or a CA task which is completed in a period and marked with some rigor by a group of grade teachers.
ICT doesn't have exams so 40% of the student end of year mark comes from this term. At the boys school a number of Grade 10 -12 failed to hand in their trimester one large assignment and of course got zero. So to avoid failing this trimester there has been a flurry of students in the last 2 days, coming into the lab and attempting to create something that may constitute a mark greater than zero. This last piece of work due in now is work 20 marks. Some students just haven't got a clue. They have sat and slept the time away and now they are in panic mode.
Ali and I have tightened up on our tasks and we are using Comic life. Previously if we were doing animation the boys would play some little Indian chap at the computer shop 20 AED to create their animation. Sadly they don't have Comic Life or a registered copy of the programme so they have to create it at school.
Grade 12 are creating static images representing animal issues, and the word that gets bandied around is torture. When I arrived over in the lab on Thursday it was half full with students. Ali has a wicked sense of humor and he told me straight away... "the animals have issues, and I am torturing them". He had told them if they did not hand in any work they would fail the trimester! Go Ali
Now failure in a grade is interesting.
If you fail any subjects you are entitled to do a resit, of the same subject but a slightly different paper. However to do any resits you must have at least one pass in a subject, any subject. So the pressure comes on to ICT teachers to pass the students because ICT does not have exams and that allows them to do resits. Both Ali and I are very firm on this. NO. We have for instance in Grade 7, 2 lads who failed the Grade last year and are repeating and they failed Grade 6 the year before You are only allowed to fail a class once before you get put through. Now the repercussions of this are strange. We have an 18 yr with extremely long legs in Grade 6. Surprise surprise he wins all the Grade 6 athletics!
2 comments:
A very entertaining read. I can understand the panic that must be taking place. I see round tables in one of the shots. Your influence? At least you have an ally in saying NO.
It all sounds rather complicated to me!
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