Sneaky Shakespeare
This lesson is one of three parts that won Conor the innovative lesson competition. Conor Sneyd has just finished his third year of studying English at Trintiy College. He's always loved English, because he's always loved reading, and he thinks that if Shakespeare was still alive he'd be annoyed that everyone takes him so seriously.
The Aim of this lesson is to make students feel more confident when approaching Shakespeare
A lot of students are very intimidated by Shakespeare, which is hardly a surprise. The biggest problem students have with it is the language: besides using lots of old words which a modern English speaker wouldn’t recognise, it is also written in a very abstract and poetic style which means that even if you do know all the words, you still might not have a clue what he’s on about. Reading Shakespeare can be a massive challenge even for a well-read adult who usually has no problems with comprehension, so for a secondary school student, who might not read a lot, or might have major difficulties with comprehension, it can be an absolute nightmare.
Human Clock
This lesson was created by Ellen Kelly. She is in her final year studying Maths and Biology at NUI,Maynooth. She has always enjoyed maths and hopes to teach it at a secondary school level soon enough! however when im not pondering some maths problems or prepairing my classes she likes to relax with a bit of yoga. 
For this lesson
- Cut out the numbers 1-12 and place them around the table to resemble a clock face. (or you can get the students to draw the numbers on the table now that we can do that!)
- Now simply ask each student to be either the minute hand or the hour hand and given a time ask them to possition themselves appropriatley around the table.
- This lesson can be easily adjusted depending on the number of students to a class and the eqiupment/space available to you.
- For instance with only one student the clock hands can be cut out so the student can place them in; or with more than 12 students each one can be a number and stand in a circle representing the clock itself while the remaing students act as the clock hands.
Learning from Mock Exams
The snow before Christmas had a knock on effect for many exam students this year. Students sat mock exams later than normal without getting a chance to finish any more of the course work. Everyone has anxiously awaited results and feedback. At The Homework Club we believe evaluation is vital to success. The Mock results don’t have to set what you will get in June. Included are some of the top tips we go through for our own students. The mocks are a test run! They test our endurance.
If you had a good mocks - you should be always be careful. Were you just lucky with the paper? are you likely to get the same questions in June? If yes, your on the road to success.
If you had a bad mocks - Don’t despair. Above all else stay confident. Always aim for the stars and you will reach success. Find your mistakes and learn from the experience. It's not the end of the world.
There are 8 main factors that effect exam performance
Subject Knowledge
Your Exam History
Exam Preparation
Exam Practice
Experience of the Subject
Writing Skills
Use of Time
Attitude and Approach
1st classes written on the table
Our new experiment .. whats happens if you let the students write directly on the tables?
This idea steams from coffee time at the Southampton Oceanography Centre while I was studying for my PhD. Physics nerds from the research section would gather around for morning coffee break and invariably talk about the latest scientific dilemmas. One morning someone brought a white board marker and wrote directly on the table.. a brilliant idea had begun.
The great advantage of this practise is that everyone is involved. If left for 5 minutes on their own students will always gravitate towards the white boards and the coloured markers, “we never get to write on them in school”. This shows how little its takes to excite a student!
Visual ways to read
For most students we learn to read by sounding out each letter and learning how these go together to form words. This is the Phonics method.
At The Homework Club we work with many students who can't ever learn to read by phonics. It might as well seem like rocket science. In fact with time and much effort they could learn about rockets long before they will ever develop an understanding for phonics. I know this because I've done it, learnt about rockets that is... In short due to the way dyslexics brain's work this is an impossible task.
