ORGANISATION

The FitzWimarc School is a nine form entry, 11 to 16 school.

One period (60 minutes) per week is provided for all classes throughout the school, and those classes are in mixed ability groups. For the Lower School, homework is timetabled for half an hour per week. In the Upper School homework is scheduled for examination subjects for about one to one and a half hours per week.

All pupils in Years 10 and 11 follow the EDEXCEL Religious Education GCSE Short course. Until June 2004, Upper school pupils received ONE lesson per week for 3 terms (1 term in Year 10 and 2+ terms in Year 11). At one lesson per week the full allocation should be 5+ terms. Happily, that is now the case and all pupils in the Upper school now receive 3 terms in Year 10 and 2+ in Year 11.

In addition, Religious Studies is still offered as a full GCSE option which is timetabled for two periods a week should pupils wish to choose it. However there are not usually sufficient numbers to make a group. Thus, last year (2003-4), 2 pupils were given extra tuition at lunchtimes and after school in Year 11 to take the other Edexcel half course, to convert their examination to a FULL GCSE.

This year (2004 – 2005), we have introduced a Distance Learning Course on the R.E. website, for which pupils can register and upgrade to the FULL course via the internet and e-mail correspondence.

STAFFING AND RESOURCES

There are currently two full-time R.E. staff, Mr. G. Jones (HOD) and Miss Voller. Currently, we are without our third full-time member and so his/her place is shared between three other members of staff: Mrs V. Newton, who is an RE specialist and teaches part-time for two days a week; Mrs A. Quinn and Miss Hutcheson (Language College Co-ordinator).

Three R.E. rooms are in use - Rooms RE1, RE2, and RE3. Two are equipped with blackout facilities and wall-mounted screen, RE3 has shaded windows. The R.E. Department also has a Kodak automatic carousel slide projector and one CD/cassette players, two cassette players, three T.V.s and two video players, one combi DVD/VCR, and one DVD player. There are three networked computer stations available for use, two printers and one scanner. There are two computer network points in each of the three rooms. The Department also has a Kodak Digital camera and has a third share in a computer projector (Humanities). There are plans to contribute a third share to a Humanities camcorder.

The library may be booked for topic research and books in the library can be put aside as “reference only” when particular subjects are being studied. Alternatively, a topic box can be made up for classroom use. Further, there are topic folders kept in the library on some subjects that are relevant to R.E. Cuttings from newspapers are regularly placed in these folders.

The computer rooms housing networked RM computer systems may also be booked for class use. There are licenced programmes installed on Computer Room 1 PCs for Aspects of Religion, Islam, Judaism and Moral Issues.

Since September 2001, we have maintained an RE website at www.fitzwimarc.org.uk which serves as a source of information, provides homework logs and help and suggests links to other useful sites. It also houses the GCSE Distance Learning Course.

In November 2004, we have started to place helpful courses on the MOODLE course management system, which has recently been installed on our school’s server. These courses run parallel to anything we do in school and can be interactive.

Books and A-V resources are listed within the syllabus after each topic.