Your favourite motivational strategies for tough GCSE groups please?

[AHardDaysWrite]

I'm starting at a new school next week as HoD of a key department. I'm being given a small group of C/D borderline boys - this is a new group that has been created for January, made up of boys who have previously all been in different classes. There will be about 15 of them and I've been told a few of the "characters" of the year group will be in there...I've never started in January before, with kids who will be unused to each other (and obviously to me). I'm looking forward to the challenge but also feeling the pressure to get these guys to pass (and to prove my worth to the other staff!). I'm planning on all the usual methods (consistency, achievable targets, positive behaviour management bribing with haribo etc), but would love to share ideas of others' favourite strategies for groups like these.

Y11? Get the parents on board proactively. Get an email address for all the parents, send out a group email talking about what is happening, planned timeline, revision classes, suggested websites for revision. Ask if they have any questions etc.

With the class, if they are boys, perhaps they will like a bit of competition?

Yes, year 11. I was thinking competitions would be good and am planning on incorporating them regularly into lessons!

I like the group email idea a lot, thank you. Definitely going to do that.

When I've worked with C/D borderline groups the biggest obstacle is fear of failure, therefore they refuse to try. Beneath all the bluster, this is often what it boils down to. So your best weapons are demonstrating that you believe in them and giving them early opportunities to succeed, then they can start to believe in themselves. Good luck!

Maths or English?

Start by finding out what is important to them - c grades / academic success may not be it - and working out how your subject can help with that. If you have any choice in the curriculum then choose subjects/texts carefully.

English, Roisin. Totally with you on the fear of failure aspect - I want to be super-positive (but firm!) with them.

ATruth the subjects/texts are dictated by the exam spec, but I will obviously try and make it relevant and engaging for them.

Which spec though? For example, for aqa lit most groups do inspector calls or woman in black, but depending on the group, dna or touching the void could be more engaging for groups like yours.

I picked up a similar group last January. The previous teacher had started the relationships cluster in the anthology (why?!?) I wish I'd ditched it and done conflict instead!

Totally agree with Roisin about positivity. I've just about killed myself remaining positive with year 11 but hoping it's paid off when results are out next week.

It's AQA A - but they've done the lit already. I'm kicking off with the anthology so I was thinking conflict would be better than relationships, definitely!

Another thought. I need accurate baseline data for them, and they've come from different classes so haven't necessarily all done the same assessments. I'd really like to make them sit a mock exam paper next week, just so I can see straight away where they're at and what the main issues are. But that's not an ideal way to bond with a new class, is it? To begin by making them sit in silence for an hour doing an exam? Any thoughts on how you'd play this one?

Half an exam? E.g just the unseen poetry section? With plenty of prep in the preceeding lessons so they don't feel it's sprung on them?

Alternatively, ditch the curriculum completely for the first week and do some 'getting to know you' / creative writing culminating in something that could be used for an original writing assessment.

Btw, I was in a very similar position exactly a year ago and it all worked out fine. I know you must be terrified/excited and I hope it's as positive a move for you as it was for me

I rarely do tests as my groups are all SEN and some can't write/speak - but I would go in with a Fight Club approach - split the class in two and the challenge is to ask the other group questions from the curriculum that they have covered - get them to prepare 20 difficult questions about the course so far and they take turns in the English Fight Club.

So the first part of the session is to get them to introduce themselves to each other, then give them the assignment, then split and they get time to come up with the questions. The process of discussing the questions ends up being the revision and from observation and discussion in the groups you will be able to tell who is confident and up to speed and who is not.

Keep score on the board. Give extra points for discussion, teamwork, deviousness of questions, etc.

Buy them stuff - as HoD, you'll be budget holder so set aside some money for this key group and buy them some resources. Get them clear pencil cases, biros, highlighters, maybe some of those thin colourful annotating pens (stadtler triplus or the Sainsburys equivalent at half the price). If they might need to resit language, but them the Pearson revision guides and workbooks. Explain clearly that you see this as an investment in their success and that you expect them to look after it all v carefully. Keep all the packs in school so you never have conflict over arriving ill-equipped. New exercise books with a big emphasis on keeping them as a portfolio of work that shows progress and in good nick. Make sure your classroom is well equipped eg with glue sticks, scissors etc for sticking in worksheets. Make sure all worksheets are pre-trimmed so they can be stuck in neatly with no bother. Basically, make it am absolute expectation that they take pride in their work and make it as easy as possible for them to do it.

If you are studying lit, the short stories are working brilliantly with my C/D borderliners. I'll be happy to send you some resources if you want to pm me an email address. I started Insp Calls but I don't love it and the kids loathed it so for the first time ever I abandoned a text and started again with surprisingly happy results. Character and Voice poems are brilliant for this sort of group, too.

Have you got a visualiser in the classroom? If not, it's really worth getting one for the afl opportunities - you can just stick the exercise book of anyone who has done well and mark it in front of the class for exactly what they've done right. It can be really motivating, especially as you can just cover the rest of their work with a bit of paper and only show the best bit.

Try WAGOLL bingo - get them to make a bingo grid for six success criteria and write in six features they'd expect to see in a good piece of work for whatever skill (WAGOLL stands for what a good one looks like) and then play bingo as you display either a modelled piece or one of their pieces. If they get a line or a full house, they have to be able to explain why the piece on show meets their success criteria. This is doable in 10-15 mins and is good fun.

Set short homeworks and mark them by turnaround so that they get into the habit of doing the work and having it checked straightaway.

I guess it all depends on the culture of the school you're going into and their recent experiences, but if you make them feel secure that you care about the quality of what they do every time they set pen to paper you should get them on side fairly quickly, especially if you can help them to see where they are making progress over a short period of time.

Good luck - it's a tough ask to turn a group around at this stage in the year. They might be quite angry about their last teacher leaving them in the lurch so they might need a lot of reassurance. I'm sure you will sort them out in short order.

Thanks to all of you for your ideas. They're brilliant and I will be using all of them! I love WAGOLL bingo and will be using that with all my classes, never mind this group! The visualiser sounds good - I've never used one. Does it plug into your computer to display on the smartboard?

One thing I've found v helpful with groups like that is to do 'C' highlighting when marking - so I'd highlight anything they did in a piece of work, however small, that was doing the right things for a C grade. It meant they could see that they were getting things right, especially when the highlighting increased on the next go (which it hopefully will!).

And anything to boost their confidence, as has been said before - eg a display wall where they get their photograph up (ideally looking a bit daft - eg their head stuck on James Bond/whoever's body) every time they get a C even on part of an exam question.

The visualiser is pretty idiot proof. I just never remember to use it!

Yes, visualiser goes through the projector. They're relatively reasonable - managed to persuade our head to buy them for all our rooms. They're brilliant. As a new HoD, you might find they're very keen to give you whatever you ask for. Just saying...

I'm KS1, but my school English teacher had a few good techniques that he used with all his classes (that still stick in my mind). Some may work with your class.

Success Criteria highlighting - we mainly did this with literature, but you could do it with anything. Each thing has a different colour (eg. Red = paraphrasing academic response to text, blue = direct quote from academic, green = quote from text) - we could say what we were missing out, and how unbalanced the structure of our writing was. Soul destroying for the first few times, but pleasing to see it improve. I suppose quite similar to Remus' C highlighting.

Anything we had to learn (grammatical rules, key quotations etc) he had a rugby ball and we went into the hallway or pushed all the tables back and threw the ball around shouting out whatever we were learning.

Poster competitions (I know, sorry). The challenge was to create a poster which would be the most memorable, so again we used key quotations from the text. Everyone was assigned a line from the play and we got glitter, paint, stickers... We made a jigsaw wall displaying them all in a sort of storyboard pattern, and I can indeed still remember lots of them.

Good luck OP! Hope it goes well today.

It was awful. They were telling each other to fuck off whilst walking through the door (they'd seen me) and two flatly refused to do anything - I'd planned a way into poetry by using song lyrics, and when I asked them to write down a song lyric they like, two of them just said "I'm not doing that." I kept them behind after the lesson (luckily it was break) and they begrudgingly did it then. Some of the others just took the piss, writing sex on the beach etc. they are not on side and very unwilling to engage. No-one threw anything or left their seat but just getting them to write more than a one-word sentence was a challenge. I need to re-think things before tomorrow's lesson as they are so resistant. Not a good start

Oh dear- that must have been very demoralising OP. Don't worry - we've all been there! Ok what I suggest for tomorrow is
Go through behaviour rules- get them to copy them into their books.
Use a v easy starter like a word search as they come in- the first to sit down silently, get out equipment and complete task (already set out on desk) gets a reward.
I often find that resistant students respond much better to being given something to read, rather than having to come up with a creative idea at first- it is more reassuring and the fear of failure is less.So I would give them an easy poem with some basic comprehension questions. Lots of praise for getting it right. You could use a poem like 'Timothy Winters' maybe?
Basically, for a class like this, do the opposite of 'Ofstedy' lessons- no group work, no creativity, lots of individual work and copying AT FIRST. Then once they are settled, you start with the proper work! (And hope no one observes you in the meantime). Sorry if that sounds cynical but I have taught in tough London schools for a decade and that's what has always worked for me.

They sound vile. Do they know why they need a C at GCSE? Do they know that if they don't get it they'll be forced to continue to study English post-16?
What do they want to do with their lives? You could go on a job website and show them how many jobs need English and Maths, and what sort of wages entry-level jobs get.

They probably got used to years of 'failure' and the bad attitude might well be a way for them to try to tough it out and show that they 'don't care' (whether they do or not). It's so, so difficult to start at such a late date, with such a group, but once they realise that you want to help them and that you know what you're talking about, it might get (a bit!) easier.

Making them think they can achieve is your biggest problem/challenge/opportunity. Break things down into small, stepped chunks, with a sense of achievement at each point; use as much praise as you can possibly muster for those who try to engage (even if you have to do it through gritted teeth to begin with); try to avoid the 'blank page' to begin with and use images, graphic organisers etc - take it back to using arrows to link things, putting things in the right part of a table etc etc - baby steps.

Sorry if all of the above seems too obvious, but basically you are starting at 'potty training' level again, and so are they. It's the secondary school equivalent of star charts, I guess!

Good luck.

Oh dear. It's not that surprising though is it? You knew they'd be tough and they've got a reputation to uphold. Stick with them and they'll be your favourite class by easter

I can only recommend going right back to basics. Strictly follow the behaviour policy whilst praising any positive things. Sims points (or whatever system your school uses) for even tiny steps in the right direction. Positive language at every turn. Seating plan. Lots of short accessible activities so they feel a sense of succcess. Highlighters (all my bottom sets love highlighters!)

How did the rest of your first day go?

Oh, and in terms of the writing side, have you come across the NATE grammar for writing schemes? They're aimed at ks3 but I use them with low set ks4 as they take a very thorough approach to creative writing.

How has the rest of the week gone?

Hope you're okay, OP.