End of a Tutoring Era

Just about to head off to my last ever English lesson with one of A Star's long-term students. Having tutored all four children in the family, who live in Southampton, over a time period of 7 years, it really does feel like the end of an era or an end of a time period in the A Star History :( Still, I am sure we will stay in touch. L

The best laid schemes....

Will hopefully all go to plan during the Of Mice and Men section of the Literature GCSE paper tomorrow morning.

Very much like the new-style exam questions, presenting students with a passage to analyse seems much more approachable. I always used to enjoy being given a passage to work with.

Well, all that's left today is to say good luck to all of our students and to hope the months of exam preparation and planning will, unlike George and Lennie's scheme, stay well and truly on course.

Food Glorious Food

Have really enjoyed using the new anthology for AS Lit and Lang this year, so much more interesting to read such a variety of texts focusing on food, rather than the previous theme of transport!

Anyway, after a year spent preparing our students all over Winchester and beyond, it's exam day tomorrow, so wishing all A Star English students the best of luck....Leanne.

Once more unto the Gothic...

Very much enjoying re-visiting Fred Botting's 'Gothic' to help develop pupils' understanding of the gothic genre. It's useful in terms of the history of gothic lit, as well as also exploring many key gothic texts, some of which appear on the AQA list of texts for the exam, such as 'Frankenstein' or 'Wuthering Heights.'

 At A Star English, we have noticed how going through some secondary reading in depth with their tutor is really helping pupils with their overall understanding and knowledge of the genre. Now to encourage them to use Botting in lots of lovely past papers!

 Am off to re-read Dr Faustus for this unit.

And so it begins...

The familiar signs of exam season are re-appearing as gcse and A-Level students are bidding adieu to facebook (temporarily); flocking to the library and even asking for extra lessons from their English tutors! Meanwhile, we tutors are finding our Saturdays suddenly filled with lessons and our printers working flat out to produce endless past-papers from the AQA website, as well as digging out any old ones we can lay our hands on. And so exam season begins for the next month or two, good luck to all our pupils.