Struggling pupils failing at GCSE

Latest data released from the schools league tables show that only 58.2% of pupils are achieving 5 GCSE grades A*-C. The Department of Education has released the information of around 5,000 secondary schools with around 200 pieces of data for each.

Those students that are struggling are those from disadvantaged backgrounds as expected and statistics show that a third of these children achieved the governments benchmark of 5 GCSEs.

Of those students who started secondary school above average (achieving level 5), 95% of them achieved good grades and GCSE and reached the benchmark.

When BTecs and NVQs are excluded, 52.4% of pupils got five passes at GCSE.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: "Today's figures reveal a shocking waste of talent in many schools across the country. All too often, pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds aren't given the same opportunities as their peers."

The figures show that those children and teenagers struggling at school aren't being given the attention they need to get them to the government benchmark of at least five GCSE grades A*-C. It is the children that are already achieving highly that are given the attention when they do not necessarily need it to achieve. A lot of the under achievers come from under privileged backgrounds suggesting that these students need as much help at school as they can get as they do not seem to be getting it at home.

Oscar Nominations 2012

The Oscar nominations were annouced today. Unsurprisingly, silent black and white movie The Artist has a number of nominations (9 to be precise). Other nominees include War Horse, Moneyball, Harry Potter 7 pt2 and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

For a full list of nominations go to:
http://oscar.go.com/nominees

Holocaust Memorial Day: Speak Up Speak Out, a Public Speaking Event

On 27th January, Christ Church college in Oxford are kindly hosting a public speaking event, organised by sixth form students of Chenderit School in association with Oxford University Archeaology department.

January 27th is Holocaust Memorial Day, a day that has inspired Oxford archeaology to commemorate the event. They have made an exibition based on Jewish and German refugee, Paul Jacobsthal, who came to Oxford during the war to escape the Nazis. Jacobsthal was an archeaologist specialising in Celtic Art and the people at Oxford have found some of his old works and personal belongings like letters and photographs in his old home. By collecting all of this material, they have put on an exhibition running from January to the 10th of March to celebrate this man and to remind us all of the dreadful events of the Holocaust.

Sixth form students from Chenderit school were asked by Oxford to help them with promotion for their exibition and to organise a public speaking event for sixth forms across the area on Holocaust Memorial Day. What started with about five students has now turned into twelve sixth form students taking the inititive to organise the whole event themselves with help from students of Gosford Hill and Cheney School who will also be taking part in the event. For the past two months preparations for this event have been underway, with some students taking the role of event managing, some in advertising and others in running the event on the night.

The night itself will consist of six schools taking part in the event, with all the topics based on persecution and freedom to link to the Holocaust and the Paul Jacobsthal exibition. As well as this, year nine students from Chenderit school who have just started studying the Holocaust have created timelines and visuals for the event.

On behalf of the Chenderit school sixth form students we would like to thank all the schools who will take part on the night, Christ Church for agreeing to hold the event, teachers from Chenderit, Gosford and Cheney for giving us contacts and links and of course Oxford archeaology department for trusting us to put together this event that we hope will run annually for a number of years.