Sir William Borlase's Grammar School

Supporting Aspiration and Progress

We offer after school general support and subject specific lunchtime support for KS3 students. Students may drop in to this support voluntarily or they may be asked to come by teachers.

Supporting Aspiration and Progress in Key Stage 3

SAPS

After school support is called SAPS (Supporting Aspiration and Progress) - Year 7 and 8 session is on Wednesdays 3:30pm-4:30pm . We have staff and senior students present to support students one to one, or students may choose to focus on a particular piece of work that they have prioritised.

English KS3 support - Thursday Lunchtime in A2U. This is not a taught session - students must bring some classwork or homework to work on with a teacher.

This covers language analysis extracts and practices inference. This is optional to all students but named students will be asked to attend.

SAPS - anyone in SAPS work on finishing work from class - finish paragraphs, annotate them, write a new paragraph. English will create a topic in the English Google Classroom that gives tasks to do this.

Parents who want to support their child who may be struggling in English can do the following:

Pick a page out of any book, ask the child to read it and analyse a paragraph. How does the writer use language to: present a character, create atmosphere, create a sense of (for example fear). What is the writer trying to convey in the paragraph, what is it suggesting?

Encouraging reading - if a whole book is too much, a page of a newspaper or journal, something from a website. Graphic novels can also be excellent for students averse to reading longer texts.

Continuity from school reading: Ask which book they are reading in the library lesson, encourage them to carry on reading that book at home.

Encourage them to listen to podcasts or audiobooks - these can be purchased through programmes like Audible, but many are also available for free on YouTube. 

Maths KS3 Support 

Any student can drop in to Maths help on any lunchtime except Thursday, but we have a dedicated KS3 session on Monday Lunchtime in H5U with Mrs Leibowitz

Students may be asked to come to this if they are finding a topic hard in class, or to redo a topic test (called FFA).

SAPS: Anyone in SAPS to do their maths homework with help - it should be clear from their planner or Google Classroom what to do. If they get help from a sixth form mentor please write SAPS next to the work in their book.

Parents who want to support their child can do the following:

Purchase the book Key Stage 3 Ten minute tests published by CGP - these are excellent to do regularly. Book 1 is suitable for year 7 and Book 2 is suitable for year 8.

All pupils have online access to the ‘Discovering Maths’ textbooks that we use in class through their kerboodle login. They have a range of examples on each topic with similar questions to try, and then mixed sets of questions to build confidence with exam style questions.   

Science KS3 Support: Tuesday Lunchtimes in L3U with Mr Manthorpe

Drop-in session for students to ask questions about homework tasks or upcoming assessments

SAPS: Anyone in SAPS to look at the Google Classroom for the topic they are on currently. Go to the PowerPoint and find the slide called "Key Learning Points". This is the important slide to learn, so the mentor can help them learn these points.

Parents who want to support their child in science can encourage their child to engage with science outside school by watching science programmes on TV, Internet, documentaries, visit science museums or activities. They can also look on the Google Classroom to find the Key Learning Points at the end of each Topic PowerPoint and help their child learn these. Here is the Seneca link: SENCA

If students make an account it will track their progress over time.

This is the KS3 learning journey  summary, so they can see what topics they are studying. 

Each student will have the learning checklist (example) in their book and/or on the Google Classroom. It would be great if they could use the learning checklist to decide what to practise, and then tick it off the list as they go.