Italy Newsletter

As the final part of the Comenius International Link Project at King Edward VII School, three staff and three year nine pupils were given the fantastic opportunity to travel to Italy and learn about the culture in other European schools and communities. We travelled to the small and very close knit town of Vibo Valentia in May 2008.
The pupils stayed with local families and followed their hosts  through their daily life. This included going to school, shopping and spending time with friends.
We were lucky enough to experience the Italian school, local town life and sample traditional  customs including local produce and wine. We also linked with a Portuguese school and had time to reflect upon the school life in a variety of settings.
Please click on the link above to read about the Italy Trip.

Local Authority 'good to G8' learning and teaching project

Good teachers from schools in the LA were invited to be involved in a project requiring them to work in 'triads' to extend their teaching repertoire taking into account 'student voice' along the way. We had inputs from a range of contributors and experts including Professor Charles DesForges who worked closely with the project and advised several colleagues about their work. We also worked with a Senior Ofsted Inspector, Regional Teacher of the Year winner and students from King Edward VII school to input what they felt outstanding learning 'looked like'. At the conclusion of the project teachers involved summarised their work through a series of podcasts. Please listen if you are interested.

D and R Regional Hub Project.

The project was fantastic and an experience for all! We had the chance to meet new people and make new friends from other schools and meet and work with one of the world's leading professors. The project started with introductions of all the staff and some of the pupils telling others what they like about out their school and also one thing they would change if they had the chance to when having a private tea with their Headteacher. We did various activities using ‘new technologies’, which made us work as a team (Together Everyone Achieves More). The activities we did were really interesting and  good fun, the project was rounded off with producing ideas for ‘workshops for teacherS’ in using new technologies we take for granted that many teachers don't. The project was a great experience for all involved! If you get the chance have a look at some of our work.

 Regards               Jonny McGrady Y11 student at King Edward VII

BECTA Project

Year 8 students from King Edward VII School, Kibworth High School and Longfiled High School are involved in an exciting project using Apple itouches and working with Professor Heppell. Click the link above to view.

Also a group of Y11 students were recently invited to present work they were involved in at the school at the 2008 BETT show on the BECTA stand, related to student voice - you can view this here. Whilst they presented this work other students working with Professor Heppell in Y8 form King Edwards and Kibworth High put together their 'Top Ten' technology items at this years show. You can see this here.

 Local Community Mentoring Scheme for Year 11s (listen)

We have operated an intense intervention project starting after Christmas that mentors and monitors Year 11 underachieving students with high probability of success based on prior achievement as well as borderline C/D students, to assist them in achieving their potential of at least 5 A*-C GCSE’s in forthcoming exams. The system has been adapted by many other schools and we have been given national recognition as a 'lead practitioner' for this work.

This year we intend to extend the scheme - aspiring to offer all Year 11 students a mentor. To facilitate this we are requesting all staff at the school, teachers and support staff to become a mentor as well as working with local business partners and the Council to offer their support in our attempts to offer encouragement and support to the town's GCSE students.