1. Passmores Academy
YEAR 8 – YEAR TO BUILD
Deal with gaps in knowledge/skills; practice until fluent; seek out new challenges; build CV for GCSE

2. Key Dates Passmores Academy 13th November – KS3 Disco
19th December– Reports issued
29th January – KS3 Celebration Evening
2nd April – Reports issued
27th April -7th May – Academic tutorials
20th – 23rd April – Option Assemblies
24th April – Options Fayre
28th April – Maths Junior Challenge
30th April – Trip to Ypres
13th May – Options Evening
15th -19th June – Year 8 Core exams
16th July – Reports and exam results issued

3. Leadership Opportunities
Passmores Academy
Our Passmores Student Leadership Network is made up of seven student leaders teams that give you the opportunity to get more involved in school life & to give back to your Passmores Community.
Prefects
Year 11 students with a focus on Community, Charity, Rewards, Curriculum & Environment.
Focus on & monitor specific areas that support students to engage in school life.
Student
Pedagogy Team
Improving student learning
by working alongside
teachers (incl. Memory Ambassadors).
Focus on how learning is
affected by different aspects
of school.
Junior
Student Council
All years, including SEN Ambassadors & Anti-bullying Committee.
Focus on issues concerning
students’ daily lives at school
in general (e.g. safety,
facilities etc.)
Passmores
Student
Leadership
Network
POPstars
Peer Mentors
Leaders from our G&T cohort who act as peer teachers & mentors or organise enrichment activities.
Focus on mentoring other students & inspiring
ventures.
BeaHive
Coaches
Academic & Positive Psychology coaching for younger students.
Focus on coaching younger students to improve their academic & wider
school lives.
1-2 nominated representatives from each student leaders team make up the Passmores Student Leadership Team (StLT). The StLT meet every fortnight to provide updates on their team, to feed-forward issues & ideas to SLT and feedback
on questions & focus areas provided by SLT.
Sport Rep
Leaders
Leaders representing different sporting fields.
Focus on issues surrounding the physical health & wellbeing of students.
Pastoral
Leaders
House Captains, House Panel & Fundraising Committee.
Focus on maintaining high standards within your House, organising sports teams & raising money for charity.

4. Extra-Curricular Clubs
Passmores Academy
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
Before School (7:45 – 8:15am)
Fitness
Table Tennis
Netball
Break
(11:10 – 11:30am)
Quiet Room
Basketball Shooting
Netball Shooting
Lunch A
(12:30-1:10pm)
Guitar & Ukulele Group
(Year 7, 10 & 11)
Senior Soul Band
Vocal Pop Choir (Year 7, 10& 11)
African Drumming & Samba Group
Lunch B
(1:30-2:10pm)
Junior Soul Band (Year 8 & 9)
Vocal Pop Choir (Year 8 &9)
After School
(3:30-5pm)
Steel Pans Group 1
Youth Club
Homework Club
Steel Pans Group 2
Shakespeare Schools Festival Rehearsals
Board Games
Photography Geography Film Boys Football
Passmores Music School
Dancing Divas
English Production
Year 7 & 8 Drama Club
Photography Club
Gardening Club
Fashion & Textiles
Netball Fixtures
Rugby
Technical Theatre Club
Year 7-9 Performing Arts Club
D&T Club
Music Tech Club
French & Spanish
Passmores Phoenix
Rubgy Fixtures
Running Club
Girls Football
Futsal
KS3 & KS4 Maths Homework Club

5. Passmores Points Passmores Academy Quality of work Quality of homework
Answering questions in detail
Positively contributing to school life
Being a positive role model
Receiving a phone call or post card home
Golden Tickets
Representing the school
Helping out at events

6. Principals’ Challenge Trips
Passmores Academy
Tuesday 10th December
Friday 27th March
Tuesday 30th June – Top Achiever Principals’ Lunch
Monday 13th July
Students are invited based on:
Achievement points
Behaviour points
Detentions
Punctuality
Attendance

7. What about learning in the classroom?
Passmores Academy
What about learning in the classroom?

8. Attitude to Learning – A2L
Your attitude to learning exceeds all expectations. You are consistently focused and attentive and take pride in ensuring your classwork is of the highest quality. You can work through problems when stuck, using a variety of strategies and resources. You often help others with their learning, actively developing your own understanding through explanation. You seek and act upon feedback, always seeing this as a positive step to improve. You embrace homework / independent learning, produce work with excellent detail and you often do more because you want to. You consistently extend your learning outside of the class.  +2
Your attitude to learning is positive. You are always focused and attentive and take pride in producing class work of the highest standard. You can work through problems when stuck, using a variety of strategies and resources. You often ask questions and respond well to feedback, grasping the opportunity to improve. Homework / independent learning is always handed in on time and you often put in more effort, going above and beyond expectation.  +1
Your attitude to learning is good. You are positive towards your learning, are generally focused and engaged and your work is completed with detail, care and thought. You value your learning and that of others. You ask questions when unsure and respond well to feedback, from staff and other students. Any homework is, for the most part, completed on time and you occasionally do more because you want to. 
Your attitude to learning is inconsistent, you have to be reminded of basic expectations, often impacting on the learning of others. You complete your classwork, but don’t always put in enough effort or take pride in what you are doing. When you find the work challenging you can give up too easily. When you are asked to respond to feedback, you see this as a negative rather than an opportunity to improve. Your homework is often late with varying levels of effort.  -1
Your attitude to learning is having a negative impact on your future and/or that of your peers. Your focus is frequently poor and there is little sustained effort to improve. You give up too easily and respond negatively to feedback, from staff and students. You see little to no value in your education and as such your class work is often left incomplete or rushed with minimal effort. You rarely, if ever, complete homework.  -2

9. Passmores Academy
A2L - 0
Your attitude to learning is good. You are positive towards your learning, are generally focused and engaged and your work is completed with detail, care and thought. You value your learning and that of others. You ask questions when unsure and respond well to feedback, from staff and other students. Any homework is, for the most part, completed on time and you occasionally do more because you want to. 

10. Language in the Classroom
Passmores Academy
Language in the Classroom

11. biggest single indicator
Passmores Academy
According to the children’s organisation
UNSECO, the
biggest single indicator
of a child’s future success
at school is whether they
read for pleasure.

12. Support your child Passmores Academy Reading daily is vital.
Students at other schools in the country (i.e. your child’s exam competition) are all making this a priority.
The students with the widest vocabulary will get the highest grades. Students need to develop a way of speaking and writing “in an academic way” if they are to secure the top grades.
You cannot read Diary of a Wimpy Kid forever and expect to have a strong vocabulary. You should read it if you enjoy it – but not only that!

13. Passmores Academy
We are working on developing students’ vocabulary to meet the challenge of their GCSE exams. Their papers will be written at a reading age of 16 – indeed one was written at 17 recently (Geography Paper ). With that in mind, children need a broad academic language and to be skilled at unpicking unfamiliar words.
The University of Wellington (NZ) have developed a list of the 500 words that will support a learner through a highly academic curriculum, We are teaching these through lessons and would appreciate any support you can provide at home. These lists are in student planners – please ask your children what new words they have learnt. Ask to see their coloured bookmarks and help them to learn any new words – an online dictionary can help you to support them with this. We have built in 100s of Passmores Points to be earned by wordsmiths who use their new language in their writing and who eagerly learn new words in lessons and through their reading and conversations.

14. Accelerated Reader Passmores Academy
Accelerated Reader is a programme that we use to assess students reading ability.
Part of the English curriculum is dedicated to AR lessons. Students in year 7 and 8 have one hour every two weeks.
As a department, we test students regularly. This gives us their reading age and a book level that they should be reading.
Once students have completed a book they are able to take a quiz which measures their understanding of what they have read.

15. Passmores Academy ZPD Book Levels
Each student will be given a colour which links to their ZPD. This shows the level of books they should be reading.

16. Have a book at home that they want to read?
Passmores Academy
Have a book at home that they want to read?
Arbookfinder.co.uk

17. Passmores Academy Finished a book and need to quiz?
Go to the Passmores website, find Student and select Accelerated Reader.
Your child will know their login details. We will get them to write it in their planners.

18. Renaissance Home Contact
Passmores Academy
Renaissance Home Contact
Username- initial and surname (DEdwards)
Password- Passmores1
Home Connect allows you to see what your young person has completed on the AR system. It will allow you to check if they are quizzing regularly and if they are passing the quizzes.

19. What about homework / home learning?
Passmores Academy
What about homework / home learning?

20. Family support major factor
Passmores Academy
Family support major factor
Parental involvement is a significant factor in both accelerated and sustained student academic performance – Loucks (1992)
“School age children spend 70% of their waking hours outside of school”
“Family participation in education is TWICE as likely to impact on students’ academic success compared to how wealthy the family is.”

21. Research Informed Approaches
Passmores Academy
Research Informed Approaches
Over recent years we have been increasingly able to understand the brain and how it acquires new knowledge and stores it in our long term memory.
This has changed how we do certain things and made it clear how parents/carers can help

22. How does our memory work?
Passmores Academy
How does our memory work?
sensory input
Stimuli are received from the senses:
sight; hearing; taste; smell; touch;
sensory memory
By paying attention to these stimuli, they enter sensory memory
Sensory memory lasts seconds

23. How does our memory work?
Passmores Academy
How does our memory work?
short term memory
Short term memory lasts up to 30 seconds
It can store 5-9 items at a time
“Chunking” information makes it easier to remember
is hard to remember
is much easier to remember
Information must be rehearsed to be remembered.
If a distraction stops you from rehearsing, you will forget in just a few seconds

24. How does our memory work?
Passmores Academy
long term memory
There is no limit to how much you can store in long term memory
Memories can be stored there for your whole lifetime
Rehearsal and recall make things more likely to be remembered
Long term memory can be divided into different aspects such as:
how to do tasks (skills)
facts and information (knowledge)
how things are related to each other (connections)

25. Research Informed Approaches
Passmores Academy
Research Informed Approaches
Mindset – Dweck and Duckworth
‘Attitude impacts our altitude’
If learning is always simple how much are we really learning?
Resilience and the power of YET

26. Research Informed Approaches
Passmores Academy
Research Informed Approaches
Prior knowledge – Hoz, Bowman and Kozminsky (2001)
Understanding and making connections with prior learning is vital for ongoing success

27. Research Informed Approaches
Passmores Academy
Research Informed Approaches

28. Research Informed Approaches
Passmores Academy
‘The over justification effect’ – Edward Deci
Intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards – what works and what doesn’t

29. Assessments/tests and revision
Passmores Academy
Little and often – low stakes – a chance to remember
Passmores’ support – revision planning
A future P.I.E. on revision techniques and support

30. A Parent’s Guide to
Show My Homework
(SMHW)

31. What is Show My Homework
SMHW is an online application allowing you to see all your homework in one place.
You can use your computer, phone and tablet to access it.
A “to-do list” organises homework for you.
SMHW helps you manage your homework from wherever you are.
ALL homework from September 2019 will be set on SMHW.
WARNING! Parents will also be able to access SMHW too!

32. How Show My Homework can help…..
Keep homework organised
Sends you reminders for when homework is due
Helps show how much homework you have
Keeps you up to date when you’re away from school
No need to write homework down before leaving a lesson
Allows parents to access homework tasks so that they can support students in managing work

33. SMHW App
Your homework tasks are clearly laid out in Show My Homework with all the information you need to complete them.
You MUST have logged into the school system FIRST before accessing the app or SMHW at home!
In Settings, you can manage notifications

34. Logging on…. Login via “Office 365” ONLY!!
Passmores Website – Students – Show My Homework
Login via “Office 365” ONLY!!

35. Issues accessing the Homework tasks?
Passmores Website

36. Issues accessing the Homework tasks?
Passmores Website

37. Feedback – Possibly in the future?
You can receive feedback from your teachers about your work but this may not be to start with.
See comments from your teacher if they ask you to redo your homework and have the ability to reply to them with any questions.
Parental Feedback – please me!

38. NAME
This is the page the student will see when they log onto samlearning, our regular homework site. As you can see, it caters for all levels of learners, from those needing a little reminder to those who are interested in exploring where their subjects go in older years.
We have cropped the picture, so you won’t see the many other subjects that the site offers.
At Passmores we set the revision habit early by asking students to complete a couple of tasks a week, to help them revise information from their lessons in a rotation.
This screen is from a young man who is leading Year 7 at the moment. His avatar is on the right of the screen, with a little distance between him and the chasing pack.

39. This is the prize screen, where students can personalise their avatar, unlocking new fashions and items as they learn. They can compete against friends to see who can get the most points.
They can also convert their “virtual” points on the app into “real” Passmores Points, certificates and prizes.

40. Ensuring your child thrives at home with their maths…

41. The whole curriculum is online for your child to have access to.
What is HegartyMaths?
HegartyMaths is the best way for your child to learn maths on their own at home.
Over 900 topics are explained in 10 minute video tutorials
Each video has an assessment with questions – a QUIZ!
HegartyMaths records everything your child ever does on the system (their progress, time spent, attempts etc.)
HegartyMaths allows a parent to see everything their child needs to learn and support them. Often parents who may be unsure of the schools methods like to watch the videos along with their child and understand the techniques their child needs to know.
HegartyMaths, remembers all the child’s mistakes and gives them practice on their weaknesses (Fix Up 5)
The whole curriculum is online for your child to have access to.

42. What does a homework on HegartyMaths look like?
Step 1:
Video teaches your child everything they need to know about that topic & goes through all the examples that will be in the quiz.
Step 2:
Quiz that will allow your child to practise all the examples in the video for themself and know whether they understood what was in the video.

43. Step 1:
You child needs to watch the video. We advise that they take notes of all modelled examples.
Your child should always produce a set of well-written notes of all the modelled examples in the video as we want your child to be an expert note-takers and to revise before they try the quiz. If your child knows the material, they should still take the notes as it’s a good habit and ensure they are producing revision notes every week.

44. Step 2:
Your child then needs to assess their learning from the video in a quiz.
Your child needs to:
Write down every Q
Always show all their workings
Always mark and self-correct their work
Your child should always show their workings and mark all questions they ever do. If your child can do the question in their head they still need to show their workings as that is part of being a great mathematician.

45. What to do if your child is stuck on their homework?
1) Watch the video again really carefully ensuring all examples are copied and see if hearing and writing it down a second time helps.
2) Look at your building blocks. These are the lessons that will help you with your current homework. If these are not at 100% or less than the HegartyMaths average then you should redo those them as it will help on your current work.
In the picture, the student will struggle with homework 547 as they have only 10% on lesson 546.

46. What to do if your child is stuck on their homework?

47. What to do if your child is stuck on their homework?

48. What to do if your child is stuck on their homework?

49. What to do if your child is stuck on their homework?
There will always be an example in video that will cover an almost identical question to the one they are stuck on.
They can also pull the video up in the quiz and scrub the video to the place that will help them on the one they’re stuck on.

50. What happens when students decide not to watch the video?
“Mr Hegarty, I can’t do these homeworks as they are too hard and too I’m stupid!” (Spencer)
Very low scores
No video watched.
Spent only 2 mins quiz.
Spencer is upset and thinks he can’t do maths.
He is wrong - HE CAN DO MATHS!!!!
He is getting low scores as he is not watching the video or putting in enough effort.

51. What happens when students use Hegartymaths properly?
Students start enjoying maths and understand more in lessons.
Students like doing their homework as they feel successful.
Students do well in their exams.

52. What happens when students use Hegartymaths properly?
Students start enjoying maths and understand more in lessons.
Students like doing their homework as they feel successful.
Students do well in their exams.

53. What do parents say?
They like being able to understand what their child is learning.
It allows them to participate and help
They have seen their children become more confident and improve.

54. What if your child has completed all homework – what else could they do?
1) Use their donut to improve their weak areas: Your child can click the red section to find the quizzes they need to improve (quizzes under 70%) and redo them until they are amber (quizzes over 70%) or green (quizzes at 100%). Once they have made everything green or amber go back over the amber and try to get them to green.
Click the red section and it will open up any lessons your child is under 70% on for them to redo.

55. What if your child has completed all homework – what else could they do?
2) Fix up 5: HegartyMaths remembers every mistake your child has ever made and generates a quiz with 5 questions from different parts of maths that they are weak on so they can re-do them with the video and Fix Up!

56. Introduction to CENTURY Tech for parents.

57. CENTURY Tech – an exciting new independent learning platform.
At Passmores Academy, we are always looking for ways to extend our students’ learning. As a result, we are now using CENTURY Tech, a ground-breaking online learning platform.
It is a fabulous tool for student-driven independent learning at home.
What is CENTURY Tech?
CENTURY Tech provides students with access to a variety of high quality learning materials and assessments in English, maths and science based on the national curriculum. Other areas too. It makes personalised learning recommendations generated from students’ strengths and areas for improvement, so that students always know the best topics to study next.

58. This is how it could help student learning at home.

59. Access details
Students are able to access the platform at anytime and anywhere
It is available to them in school and also at home
The login is via the CENTURY Tech website (
Login details were given all students on a sticker to go in their planners by their form tutor.
Century Tech tablet-friendly but it is better used on a larger screen – please note it does not work well on mobile phones
If they have been mislaid, please contact Mrs Moore via the or ask your young person to come to her classroom, Y202 in Inclusion.

60. Students with no computer access at home
The school offers a wide range of homework clubs in computer rooms:
Every day after school in the ‘Gold Fish Bowl’ (Y005) with Year 11 prefects available to help.
Every Monday to Thursday 3.30 to 4.30pm in the Access Centre with co-educators available to help.
Every Thursday 3.30 – 4.20pm in Y101 with teachers available to help and free refreshments.

61. So, what about mobile phones..
Passmores Academy
So, what about mobile phones.. VS

62. Passmores Academy
Fancy being a Governor? Contact Deb Bartram at