| Secondary Newsletter - June 2010 |
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The term began on a very positive note with a visit from David Anstead, who leads the UK school inspection organisation OFSTED on ICT. Although Mr Anstead was visiting Uganda on holiday, he kindly spent three days of his vacation at Rainbow, giving valuable advice and guidance to teachers and senior management on ways to further develop the school and providing teachers and assistants with a highly instructive training session on how teachers can help their students to improve their learning skills and revise more effectively. Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) at IGCSE and A level very much dominated the secondary programme during most of the third term. We had to deal with some much tighter regulations introduced by CIE this year. Because of our time-zone, exams in Uganda start much earlier than those, for example, in the UK, and the new rules dictate that students taking an exam must remain under strict supervision until midday if the exam is scheduled for the morning, and 4pm for afternoon exams. Complying strictly with these regulations maintains our integrity as a CIE accredited centre. One important aspect of this was the requirement that we deny students access to any form of communication device during the period of supervision after exams. Despite frequent warnings, some students flaunted the rules and brought mobile phones to school with them. Two such students were found in possession of mobiles during exams and after being reported to Cambridge, which we are obliged to do, they were automatically disqualified from the exam being taken. This was a painful lesson to these students but next year we have simplified the rules to eliminate this problem altogether. No student in any secondary class may bring a mobile phone into school, for any reason. Any necessary calls can be made at Reception. We also had to deal with the very topical issue of plagiarism in the preparation of CIE coursework. Based on the assessment of our teachers, four IGCSE students had coursework cancelled because the work they handed in had clearly been copied from sources on the internet. The internet has vastly improved the ease with which students can access information but students have to show their understanding by arranging and re-writing coursework assignments in their own words and listing sources used. We also had to refuse to accept coursework that was handed in after the deadlines set. Learning to meet deadlines is a vital skill for future success and we make no apology for enforcing deadlines rigorously, unless there are genuine mitigating circumstances, such as illness. Throughout the academic year, we focused on closely monitoring the performance of students in exam classes. Years 12 and 13 were subjected to particularly close monitoring and when their effort or achievement fell short of our expectations, parents were informed of this. Many of the students undoubtedly felt the pressure on them but this was all done to achieve one important objective; an improvement in the grades achieved at AS and A level. In a few cases, students who were unable to perform well enough in their mock exams were asked to re-sit the paper and if their grades still fell short of the required standard, their exam entries were cancelled or postponed till November. We keenly await the issue of results on August 13th to see how successful this tighter policy has been. Year 11 students intending to continue their studies at Rainbow next year need to know that this close monitoring of their progress will continue. They are also reminded that they will need to satisfy our minimum entry requirement of 5 C grades or above at IGCSE, including Maths and English. We have been very happy this year with the way many of our Year 13 students have responded to the challenges faced and matured in their attitude towards their studies. Many have already seen their improved effort rewarded through the offer of scholarships; this year no less than twelve separate offers of scholarships were made to Rainbow students to further their studies overseas next year. We celebrated the graduation of Year 13 at the recent Leaver’s Ceremony, which featured a much-appreciated contribution from our guest speaker and former student, Mark Karamira. In a delightful presentation, he gave a strong tribute to the difference Rainbow had made in his life and provided a superb role-model to the aspiring audience of students. Rainbow has an all-inclusive philosophy as a school and we recognise that for some of our less able students, IGCSE courses are very demanding. Such students receive extensive support from our Special Educational Needs department, or from our ESL teachers if their difficulties arise because English is not their first language. However, we are also able to obtain special dispensations from CIE to support students with learning difficulties, which can include extra writing time, the support of a prompter, or for those with more severe difficulties, the help of a reader and a scribe. To obtain these dispensations we need a report from a qualified person, such as an educational psychologist. We will always advise parents where we think this is necessary, and can refer them to suitably qualified professionals, but it is the responsibility of parents to make the arrangements for an assessment and to get this done early, well in time for the January mock exams. As we await the arrival of the exam results in August, the question arises - how do we objectively assess the progress made by students at the school? The exam results themselves are useful but only truly meaningful if we can look at the progress made by each student as he or she progresses through the school. The concept of “value-added” was explained by Mr Green in his end of term letter to parents. Next year we will introduce a programme of baseline assessments of students at the start of each school year in English and Mathematics, and continue these each year, from when they join the school until they complete their last external exams. This tracking of progress, which is already being done in primary, will provide an accurate measure of how students progress and improve throughout their time at the school. This year, a step forward in developing a full picture of student progress through the school was the introduction of CIE Checkpoint tests in Year 9. These were taken in May, in the core subjects of English, Mathematics and Science and results arrived this week. In presenting the results, CIE compare our performance with that of students all over the world. Their analysis shows that in English the performance of our students was above average and the Mathematics results were well above average. The Science results were less encouraging; our students achieved results well below the CIE average and as mentioned below, we will be taking prompt action to address this. In the meantime, next academic year will bring some significant changes in what we offer. We will have a fully re-furbished computer room, with new computers and flat-screen monitors. The time allocated to ICT in Years 10 and 11 will be increased to give students more time to develop critical practical skills, whilst we will also be allocating more time to Science at Key Stage 3, as well as more resources to do key practical work. In recognition of the importance of Science in the curriculum, we will be holding a Science Fair during the first term. In Key Stage 3 English, we will be working with new sets of books which reflect the latest ideas in teaching and learning the different aspects of the language. Of course, there is far more to school life at Rainbow than exam results and academic achievement. Once again, there has been plenty to celebrate in the performance of our teams in different sporting competitions. In the Performing Arts, the International Talent Show in May, sponsored by Orange, gave our students an opportunity to showcase their skills in Dance and Music. Tilak Patel and Maureen Akot were awarded first place in the Dance category with their highly original salsa dance, whilst the prize for best overall performance went to the musical group consisting of Leanne Cullen on vocals, Nicholas Fehling on guitar, Rispa Hatibu on percussion and Angella Kasekende on keyboards. As a school, we are always keen to receive comments and feedback from parents. With this in mind, we sent out a questionnaire at the end of last term which many of you kindly took the trouble to complete and return. Some of the responses were very encouraging and without going into detail, it was gratifying that 83% of respondents said that they would recommend Rainbow to another parent. There were also some specific concerns mentioned and we have taken these on board. Some of these we have already acted on, such as the ordering of a lot of new textbooks and library books for next year, the building of more lockers to help students look after their property and better ICT provision. Others, such as the road leading to the school, a frequent source of complaint, are harder to deal with, as is the issue of school lunches where there are so many different opinions. We also readily acknowledge that some of our facilities and resources leave room for improvement but the process is ongoing and I hope parents will be encouraged by the further changes they see over the coming year. As always at the end of a school year, we will say a goodbye to some of our secondary teachers at the end of this term. Rene van de Velde has been Head of Science at Rainbow for twelve years and Head of Upper School since 2001. We will miss his valuable contribution in many areas and wish him all the best in his new post in Addis Ababa. Nassozi Kiyaga (SEN, ESL), Fiona Rochford (Mathematics) and Johann Urquart (PE) are also departing and we thank them all for their fine contribution and wish them every success in the future. I am happy to say that four new teachers have already been appointed for August; Thomas Colley (PE), Andrew Spraggon (SEN) and Rachel Sloane (Mathematics) will be joining us from the UK, whilst Nivedita Chakravati (Science and ESL) is coming from India to join the staff. We have also done some minor internal re-shuffling; Stephen Avis will take over as Head of History, whilst Felix Biteetisgirwe will continue as Head of Psychology but will also be given more time to focus on his main role as Career’s Advisor to students in Key Stages 3 and 4, including teaching Careers lessons to Year 9. It remains for me to thank all parents for their support and understanding over the course of the school year and to wish you a safe journey if you are travelling and a pleasant and restful break. Kind regards John Toscano |