THE GRAYDONIAN
SENTINEL Vol. #9
STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE GRAYDON SEALY PRIDE
WorldSkills Barbados Juniors Preliminaries Excellence in Skills
Hairdressing: (Left to right) Graydon Sealy student, Rho-Andrea WarnerSmith, works diligently as she create a woman’s catwalk hairstyle with braiding on a mannequin. Making careful note of her progress is Hairdressing judge, Akeila Chaoman.
Forty competitors from ten secondary schools across Barbados gathered at the Grantley Adams Memorial, Queen’s College and St. Leonard’s Boys for the preliminaries of the inaugural WorldSkills Barbados Juniors (WSBJ) competition last week. The students were vying for a chance to reach the finals of the competition which is scheduled to take place November 26 – 28, 2019 at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC), Two Mile Hill, St. Michael. Rho-Andrea competed with students from the Barbados Seventh Day Adventist School, Deighton Griffith, Ellerslie, Frederick Smith, Christ Church Foundation, Grantley Adams Memorial, Graydon Sealy, Queens College, St. Leonard’s Boys and The Lodge. Adapted from: https://www.worldskillsbarbados.org.bb/News/WorldSkillsBarbados-Juniors-Preli.aspx
On Thursday 31st October, Mr. Andrew Wharton celebrated his birthday. This gentleman, one of our security guards, was recognised on his special day by the members of the Physical Education department. The importance of being there for the people you work with and recognising each other as a part of our extended ‘work family’. Well done! Hope you had a great day, Mr. Wharton. to the P. E. Department.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREETINGS The ONLY November born this week.
Ryan Kellman 4th November
EXCELLENCE in School Spirit
THURSDAY
NOTICES House Prayers. BSL Athletics training session – 3:00p.m. at the Garrison Savannah. MONDAY The Duke of Edinburgh Awards club meets today. Come, join and be inspired.
Mid-Term Reports to be distributed today.
TUESDAY Full Assembly – Cadet Promotions. BSL Athletics training session – 3:00p.m. at the Garrison Savannah. WEDNESDAY Year Prayers.
Pele
FRIDAY
End of Week 9. Have a GREAT WEEKEND.
Amid current pressures, schools must focus on giving the best education and creating a lifelong passion for learning among pupils. Mark Enser
Schools need to pursue a culture of excellence that permeates every classroom and department. Pressures on schools to perform have never been higher, with a constant focus on data, various different league table measures, exam results and the ever-present threat of Ofsted inspections at the first sign of a slip. These might not feel so onerous if they weren’t also happening against the backdrop of severe real-term budget cuts to schools, a retention and recruitment crisis, and rapid reforms to GCSE and A-level exam specifications that have left schools scrabbling to keep up. In this climate, there is a temptation to, simply try to get through the changes unscathed, to focus on the data and getting the best possible place in league tables. But, this short-term outlook is a barrier to genuine improvement as each action becomes a response to the latest crisis or government diktat.
What is needed, instead is a culture of excellence that permeates every classroom, department and school; a focus not on simply getting the best grade, but on getting the best education and creating a lifelong passion for learning. This shift in focus matters. Research from The Equality Trust suggests that countries with low levels of educational achievement suffer from higher levels of inequality. It concludes that: “The link between educational achievement and high aspiration is a key explanation for the association between low educational achievement and inequality.” This is not to deny the importance of qualifications – there is little doubt that educational attainment improves your life chances – but simply chasing data will never lead to a culture of high aspiration from individual pupils. Inequality will remain entrenched and life chances will still be dependent on your parents’ background. I feel lucky to work in a school where excellence is expected from every student, regardless of their background. Students, teachers and visitors are greeted by a quote from Aristotle. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” This idea is central to creating a culture of excellence at a
at a school and departmental level. The following are the steps we have put in place to start creating this culture of excellence.
Raise your standard high The first step is to agree on what excellence actually looks like in your subject. What can an excellent year 7 geography student do? What are your expectations of the quality of work for a year 12 student in chemistry? In our department, we start planning every new unit of work by coming up with a checklist of what we expect students to know and be able to do. We can then use this to plan the learning and create knowledge organisers for pupils to use at home. This approach means that we are always thinking about the purpose of our subject and considering the best it has to offer. In department meetings, we share examples of excellent work that pupils have created, and log them so we have a bank of work to exemplify standards. This can then be shared with pupils, parents and colleagues so everyone knows where we are aiming. These learning checklists and knowledge organisers
also help to hand back responsibility to pupils to check that they are on track. They can clearly see what they are expected to know and do, and can seek support for any areas of concern.
Lead the way Once high standards have been set, we can start ensuring that all students know how to meet them. The bank of excellent work is one way to do this; it can be annotated to explain the criteria it meets and then displayed and discussed. One of the most powerful ways to support a culture of excellence is through live modelling, where the teacher answers a question themselves and explains their thought process in front of the class. The technique can be adapted so that a piece of work is produced as a class and developed through carefully planned questioning. Varndean College in Brighton has been embracing the idea of a culture of excellence with a number of working groups looking at various pillars of teaching and learning. One group has been focusing on the use of academic language in discussions to show the standards expected. Complex, subject-specific words are used with their meanings added as an aside. Pupils are challenged on the use of colloquial words in their answers to questions and asked to respond more formally.
Is it excellent yet? Over the years, I am sure I have accepted any amount of substandard work. There has often been an attitude – from pupils and teachers alike – that work just needs to be done. Now, students have started asking: “Is this excellent yet?” There is now an expectation that work isn’t finished until it is excellent, that proof reading and redrafting should be the norm, and that students will do this before handing in work.
Taking it further I have seen schools around the country focus on encouraging pupils to embrace their education and be willing to work beyond the classroom. At Walton High School in Stafford, pupils are encouraged to engage in additional research to support what they have learned in class. “Each department lists a range of extra tasks that outstanding students in that subject should do, such as visiting historical sites and writing a report or reading specific books,” says Jade Slater, assistant head teacher. “Pupils who do all of those tasks achieve honours in that subject, with a celebration evening and displays on the department honours board.” Jenn English, head of geography at Wellington School in Manchester, offers pupils the chance to enter a raffle after completing extension tasks that are designed to enrich their learning. After the last few years of upheaval in education, it looks as though the dust may be settling. In this period of relative calm, I hope that we will see teachers and school leaders focusing not on data, but on ensuring that all children leave school with an excellent education and a lifelong love of learning. Mark Enser is head of geography at Heathfield Community College. He writes the Teaching it Real blog and tweets @EnserMark.
Dilbert
“Choosing Excellence empowers all of us–parents, kids, schools, businesses, organizations–to build positive relationships and strong communities. Excellence is defined as good qualities in high degree and building excellence in communities leads to citizens with a solid core of good character.” – Bobbi DePorter, President, Quantum Learning Network and Learning Forum International Taken from: http://www.communitiesofexcellence.org/
Most of the students at GRAYDON SEALY SECONDARY SCHOOL strive for excellence; for the few who struggle to find their purpose and stumble along the way, let us as a caring and supportive learning community guide them along the path towards excellence. Excellence is a habit that manifests itself in all aspects of our growth. In life we eventually become who we consistently practice to become. If we continue to strive for the best and push ourselves beyond what we think is possible or what we believe we can achieve, we will eventually achieve excellence. However, this is not an easy path; remember that anything worth having never comes easy. As we travel this road, we will fail and at times, feel as if we will never get what we are
aiming for but that is exactly the time not to give up. That is the time to work harder and push yourself to your breaking point because, promised to those who never give up is SUCCESS. Graydon Sealy P.R.I.D.E. promotes a progression to excellence starting from the time the students arrive in First form. Keeping that theme in mind, let us journey through
PATIENCE, RESPECT, INTEGRITY, DETERMINATION and keep on striving to achieve EXCELLENCE.