{"id":1718,"date":"2017-03-12T20:29:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T20:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harlawacademy.aberdeen.sch.uk\/?p=1718"},"modified":"2017-03-12T20:29:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T20:29:54","slug":"6th-10th-may-best-work-first-time-on-time-every-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/2017\/03\/12\/6th-10th-may-best-work-first-time-on-time-every-time\/","title":{"rendered":"6th-10th May: &#8220;Best work, first time, on time, every time&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A big focus for teachers and pupils at present is getting work complete for internal SQA deadlines.\u00a0 It is difficult to underestimate the importance of this work as the coursework can represent a big part of the overall course award.\u00a0 In addition, many pupils are trying to finish off unit assessments and re-assessments without which they will not gain an overall course award.<\/p>\n<p>The various deadlines undoubtedly place\u00a0big demands on pupils and their families.\u00a0\u00a0But\u00a0they also place massive demands on their teachers who are often trying to support in excess of 100 pupils\u00a0through to SQA qualifications.<\/p>\n<p>All year I have placed emphasis on\u00a0the concept of pupils producing <strong>&#8220;best work, first time, on time, every time&#8221;.\u00a0 <\/strong>Sadly,\u00a0many pupils have put things off, have done too little and have settled for second best and just in time (or even a little overdue).<\/p>\n<p>If they had\u00a0truly produced their\u00a0<strong>&#8220;best work, first time, on time every time&#8221;<\/strong>\u00a0things could have\u00a0easier in a number of ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Unit assessments would have been passed meaning re-assessments would not be needed (significantly reducing the\u00a0workload\u00a0on pupils and teachers)<\/li>\n<li>Work could have been marked\u00a0on the day it was handed in by the whole class and returned the next lesson (rather than\u00a0everyone waiting for stragglers to hand it in)<\/li>\n<li>Learning could have been progressive and demanding (rather than having to go back over things people have only half learned)<\/li>\n<li>People could have secured a good prelim grade and be looking for top grades in their final exams (rather than having a\u00a0marginal grade in the bank and pressure riding on the final exam)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For many pupils there is still a little time (around a week) to meet the internal deadlines.\u00a0 This is followed by a bit more time (around 4-6 weeks) to prepare for the final exams.\u00a0\u00a0The main message for our pupils remains <strong>&#8220;best work, first time, on time every time&#8221;.\u00a0 <\/strong>Now is not the time for half measures because there is no time to do anything about it.\u00a0\u00a0It is a time for maximum effort and full concentration.<\/p>\n<p>Almost all\u00a0departments have additional\u00a0revision sessions on offer, individual teachers are wiling\u00a0to help anyone who asks and there\u00a0is a vast amount of support on line (through Google classrooms, Bite size\u00a0and Scholar\u00a0from the school and numerous other sources).<\/p>\n<p>I am very confident that the pupils who have been producing \u00a0<strong>&#8220;best work, first time, on time every time&#8221;<\/strong> and taking advantage of the support of their teachers all session will get the SQA grades their efforts\u00a0deserve.\u00a0 I am also fairly sure that anyone who steps up the pace, even\u00a0this late in the\u00a0session, can still do pretty well.\u00a0 Those who keep\u00a0putting things off, taking short cuts and settling for second best will be disappointed.\u00a0 There really is no substitute for hard work and practice really does make perfect.<\/p>\n<p>This message is mostly directed to our senior pupils but it also applies to those in S1-S3 (and even those in our Primaries).\u00a0 Good habits cannot start early enough so the message to all our pupils\u00a0is to keep producing your <strong>&#8220;best work, first time, on time every time&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A big focus for teachers and pupils at present is getting work complete for internal SQA deadlines.\u00a0 It is difficult [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parents","category-weekly-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harlawacademy.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}