News-2010-12-06

6 December 2010

Read all about it.

‘Fantastic’ BGTC is front page news!

BGTC made front page news this week in EastEndLife, the weekly Tower Hamlets newspaper. Following on from our formal opening and achievement evening, we really are looking forward to a "fantastic future". As you will all know by now, the refurbishment works as part of Building Schools for the Future will be completed by the end of the year. Add to that our best ever GCSE results and things are really looking good for BGTC. Congratulations to all of our Achievement Award winners and a massive thank you to everyone that attended and contributed, making it such a memorable event. Read the article in full online here: www.bgtc.org.uk/wordonthestreet

Student Pledge Sign up now.

Many of our recent headlines have been about the new school building but we know it's the good behaviour, right attitudes and mutual respect amongst students and staff that really makes a difference. To reflect this, we are launching a new 'Student Pledge'. At it's core, the message is simple, "Teachers have the right to teach and students have the right to learn". All students have been issued with a copy to sign up to and keep in their student planners.

Check out our blog (www.bgtc.org.uk/wordonthestreet) for more information.

Year 11 Revision Classes Our Year 11 team have put together a new revision timetable for the coming term to support our students in the lead up to their exams. There is something on offer every day of the week. Check the Year 11 web page and be sure to put the timetable insert into your planner.

Word Of The Week (part of our Focus Words programme, see overleaf) annotate

verb to add notes to (a text or diagram) giving explanation or comment: the book she was studying was annotated with notes to help her revise.

www.bgtc.org.uk/wordonthestreet

Credit where credit is due.

Student reward credits.

We have introduced a few improvements to the Reward Credit scheme for students. Credit are awarded for effort, achievement or progress in lessons and teachers can also send postcards home to parents to acknowledge excellent work or a positive contribution - all of which are worth 1 credit and are logged on the sheets in your planners. When you have filled a sheet, make sure you hand it in at student reception because they are now converted into prizes! For example, 125 credits will earn you a £5 voucher, 250 and you’ll win an express lunch pass. For more information, check the student section of the school website.

Code Crackers Quick Response Codes: An Update It was fantastic to see so many students intrigued by the QR Codes posted around the school last week. We could barely get you out of the gates at the end of the day! Unfortunately, nobody has actually cracked the code yet! Why not ask your tutor to help you? You have one more week to solve the puzzle and we will announce the prize winner(s) in our last newsletter of the term. Good luck!

Words on the street.

Subject Focus Words

It is obviously quite important that students learn, understand and regularly use the words and phrases that are commonly used in the subjects they study.

We call these Focus Words. Each classroom has a list of focus words on the wall that are relevant to the subject being taught and by using these more often our students will in turn gain a more fluent understanding of the subject.

Below is a sample of Focus Words from the English department. Our Word Of The Week is also taken from this list each week and a complete list can be found in the ‘Students’ section of the school website.

Focus Words: English Audience Purpose Text Type Form Structure Presentational devices Language devices Textual evidence Evaluate Interpretation Analysis

www.bgtc.org.uk/wordonthestreet

The digital download version of our newsletter, available from the school website, has hyperlinks to dictionary definitions of each Focus Word.