RAG. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Fails.

Being on the RED cohort, as I have been since this ridiculous system was installed in school, I have been to most of the revision sessions there is science, art e.t.c. I appreciate that school are willing to help the ‘underachievers’ and so I attend all of the sessions that they want me to, or should I say the system dictates I must. However when I attend these sessions I find regularly that they are of little or of no use to me for one reason in particular. Multi-ability classes. When I have to sit there watching the hands on the clock move slower than traffic on a Friday listening to the teacher explain to the class things that are not relevant to my education I get slightly ticked off. I’m not slagging the people in the lower ability groups, I myself have many friends who are in the ‘B’ band, I’m just saying that when they’re not even sitting the same paper let alone tier as me it seems a bit pointless to mash us all together. The same applies with my lessons for several of my options. Being told by a teacher that we have to answer a set of questions. Fine. Being told by a teacher that we have to answer a set of a questions and then being forced to listen as she answers every single one. Humiliating. Patronising. Stupid.
I had a meeting the other week with a member of the Upper School Office team, a nice lady, she, like many others before her said the same thing to me. She wasn’t worried about me. Some people would take this as an insult but I fully understood what she meant. Unlike many of the people she had been meeting with my target grades were not below C, they were actually quite high.
Another incident occurred the other day as well. Whilst in a class of some of the brightest students in the year the teacher made the comment that ‘I don’t think that anyone in here would be underachieving in 5 or more subjects’ or something to that affect. Raises Hand.

Let’s break it down:
RED: 6 subjects
Amber: 4 subjects
Green: 1 subject.

To me this means that not only do I have to attend after school, I will not be allowed study leave this year. This apparently worked with excellent results last year. Having never talked to a Sixth Former who this applied to I can’t say whether it did or didn’t work, but it’s a bit late to start worrying about that. To become a member of the Amber cohort I would have to, in total, increase my grades by 9 grades i.e. to go from RED to AMBER in art I would have to move up from a B to an A which classes as an increase of 1 grade. Add it up across the board makes 9 grades like I said. In two months???? Not going to happen.Now even more ridiculous is the increase to go from RED to GREEN which totals up to be 19 grades altogether, I’m not even going to try. Why bother? For me I am pleased with my grades & consequently ignore the RAG system where possible, my parents are pleased with my grades and have told me that they are proud of me and that I shouldn’t let it bother me. I try not to. Everyone knows whether you have or haven’t been in year 11 that it is a time when immense pressure is placed on students. Imagine (or remember that). Now imagine (or remember) that with the fact hanging over your shoulders that you are UNDERACHIEVING and because you are UNDERACHIEVING you shall not receive not study leave, you, because you are UNDERACHIEVING shall attend revision sessions. Also as it has been hinted because you are UNDERACHIEVING you may not be allowed to attend the prom. Hell why not give me a RED armband and make me eat with people of the same cohort.


I'm passive, I don't get angry unless someone really annoys me.


For anyone else who is one RED these might come in handy:

Childline: 0800 11 11

The Market Place: 0113 2461659


If you can't remember then they're in the whit pages of your planner under the heading 'Useful Numbers & Sources Of Support'. I wonder why school felt that we would need these?

R.A.G

The curriculum for English at GCSE level requires students to study texts which were written for different purposes, one such article was the 'Cannabis: Should it be legalised' extract from the Daily Express. The argument for no, it should not be leagalised, had many convincing points, it would, it's cannabis people. 'Without exception, everybody who regularly smoked dope lost their motivation to succeed.' After receiving several letters that declared in bold that I was on the red cohort overall, the first of these letters was received a week or so before I started my trial exams, the thing that, as so often drilled into year 11 students, 'would be the thing that would be relied on as evidence if a accident occurred which prevents the students from entering the exams come June'. Now we all know what confidence is and how school aims to increase a pupil's confidence with policies & activities, but a letter???? A week before crucial exams???? The second letter I didn't care about, the RAG system no longer exists in my mind apart from the fact that it means that I have to take part in extra-curricular activities nearly every day of the week. After having to do ludicrous things last year such as 3 hours of science resits in one sitting I have lost all faith in gaining relief from this depressing system which is 'under review'.
As a direct result I have lost motivation for science, which was dull to begin with, even my second favourite subject, Art, has lost appeal slightly as I only achieved an A for my trial exam, which I did not even complete, I was placed on the list for after school sessions due to the fact that I was two marks below it. Which begs the question is the RAG system school's new equivalent to cannabis and if it is should it be made illegal?

Credits Error/Cafeteria/Revision

Whether it be websites, computers or the prone-to-failure BSF project, there seems to be no end to Temple Moor's stupendous ability to turn every aspect of school life a farce. Except the Stock Market Challenge, where the Temple Moor team managed to finish second. Bravo!

Look in your planner. Go. Now. Check the amount of spaces for credits you've got in those green pages. It goes all the way up to 800 credits. How anyone is supposed to get there I don't know, but that's not the point. The SIMS.net database that's used by the school to centralise every bit of data - target grades, achieved grades, attendance records for every lesson and even photographs - has a space for teachers to input credit amounts during Guidance or registration. The maximum amount you're allowed to put in? 700. So if you reach that number of credits, just give up.

It may be over-priced, over-healthy and packed to its capacity, but enjoy the cafeteria while you still can. See, over Easter, it's going to be demolished. But don't worry! They'll build a new one. The new cafeteria will take the same spot occupied by the current cafeteria, so they need to knock one down before they can even start on the next. And they've got two weeks to do it in. What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, those on "amber" for History (using everyone's favourite system, traffic lights RAG) get more revision sessions than those on "red". We're not sure if this is true, but if it is, then Temple Moor have royally screwed up their own ridiculous system.

Aim Higher and more RAG

As my first post on here for a while (well, since Halo 3 came out), I'll be discussing, or better to put it, ranting about the "Aim Higher" system implemented by the schools fascist administration. The idea behind Aim Higher is to bludger students with hour after hour of "optional" school work. I put the word "optional" in quote tags because that's how these lessons are advertised across, the reality being much more different - or so it seems to us. Other lessons include staying over during the holidays which could be better spent trying to eat broken glass rather than doing coursework.
As another Templar put it, the school is not trying to teach us, but make us into exam monkeys.

Second of all, there is a new development with the RAG system that has been discussed more than once here before. The school administration has taken a leaf out of Nazi German's "Buch" and is now labeling all pupils by colour. You guessed it. Red, amber and Green. Pupils will be awarded Green if they're on target over all. Amber if they are under achieving in some areas, and Red if they are doing not as expected. Of course, the school's first choice of punishment would be firing squad, but when the school found out that was now illegal, instead pupils under achieving wont get any study leaves instead.

How do you feel about either of the new "punishments" the school's implemented? Post a comment or sign up and make your own posts.