Notes Meeting April 12, 2011

Paula, Sofía, Alina, Pimpa, Cecilia, Silvia, Nora, Grace, Adela, Carolina, Carlos.
Absent: Janine

Feedback on 2010 FCE and IB exam results.
Twenty six kids passed FCE, and all students passed the IB exams. Cambridge has not sent us the detail of our students' performance by paper. In the IB we have the written tasks and the grades each one got. If you're interested you can stop by the office to have a look at them.

Diagnostic assessment of each level
o 1st Sec: chaotic group, 28 students per group are too many… Teachers are facing great challenge to handle group with no study and classroom habits. They seem to enjoy the material but it’s hard to keep them focused and well-behaved…
o 2nd Sec: the group is good at English. They don’t behave, tend to lose things, are noisy especially boys. They’re great at analyzing texts. The fact that there are 20 students per group makes it possible to work well.
o 3rd Sec: The groups are too big: 27 or 26 each… They’re noisy, talkative. They wrestle! Unfortunately they’re not inclined to academic work at all, tend to be unfocused, and hardly every bring all of the required material to class. The groups have students with a wide variety of English proficiency. Some of them use a lot of Spanish in class.
o 4th Sec: good groups. The fact that each class has 20 or 21 students makes a world of difference. Students tend to be very immature but are nice, tender, seem to have a genuine interest in learning, and are usually responsible.
o 2nd Pol: smaller groups make teachers’ work possible (16 per class). While some of them are really weak, another group can do whatever they’re asked. There’s a third group with great potential but don’t exert themselves.
o 3rd Pol: most of them work hard but don’t seem too motivated to participate much. Unlike groups in previous years, they don’t show much interest. A few students are weak but, worst of all, show no attitude to improve. This is a problem when they are facing A2 course demands.

· It was stressed that it’s likely to become very difficult to respond to the demands of the new exams with so many students per class.

Planificación
Each level’s Annual Planning (planificación) must be submitted (to Carlos, please) by May 6, the latest.

It was decided that each level will have the following configuration:
1st Sec:
Global Studies & Language (EDI), 6 hours per week (hpw).
Literature (INGLES), 8hpw - Comprehensive evaluation at the end of the term.

2nd Sec:
Global Studies - Language (EDI), 8hpw.
Literature (INGLES), 6hpw - Comprehensive evaluation at the end of the term.

3rd Sec:
Language (INGLES),6hpw - Comprehensive evaluation at the end of the term.
Global Studies / Literature (EDI), 8hpw.

4th Sec:
Language (INGLES), 4hpw - Comprehensive evaluation at the end of the term.
Global Studies / Literature (EDI), 5hpw.

2nd & 3rd Pol:
Literature (INGLES), 4hpw - Comprehensive evaluation at the end of the term.
Global Studies (EDI), 5hpw.

Professional development and coming events.
Carlos reminded everyone that the deadline to present a proposal at both the Jornadas de Adquisición and FAAPI’s Annual Congress is April 29.

Assessment of weak and newly admitted students.
Early detection of these kids is important.
o In each case we should determine what course of action should be taken (set clear expectations with each student in a one-to-one conference, call parents, etc);
o Set them on a Contract. Contact Carlos to help you out on this.
o Parent involvement is crucial. Our strategy is to get them involved early on in the academic year so that we can set a joint strategy home-school to get their child to meet proposed objectives.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:55pm.