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Teaching and Learning

Hodgson provides a first rate, all-round education for children of all abilities. Each student’s pathway through school includes all of the National Curriculum subjects – with the essential core skills of literacy and numeracy - taught by well-qualified teachers in fully equipped classrooms, laboratories and other specialist accommodation. Students are supported and encouraged by their teachers at every step of their education.

Teaching Groups

Students entering the school are placed in one of eight form groups. Each of these forms contains students with the full range of ability within school. Students are taught initially in forms for most subjects, to give them time to settle into their new surroundings. Following this introductory period, the school timetable allows staff to re-group classes according to the needs of individual students. This setting takes place on entry in English and Mathematics and in Year 7 in other subjects. Teaching groups are continually reassessed as students’ progress through school.
 

Homework

Homework is regularly set for all students, as it is an essential part of learning. Students are provided with a Homework Planner, which is regularly checked by their Progress Tutor and parents are asked to sign this each week.

Homework Help Sites:

BBC Schools
Homework Elephant
Homework High
GCSE.com
Schoolzone

NB. Hodgson is not responsible for the content of external websites.

 

Monitoring Academic Progress

All students are set progress targets in each of their subjects, which are continually monitored. Parents receive a report each term (three annually) that documents their child’s progress. There are also two annual formal progress evenings for each student and their parents.
             
All students leave Hodgson with a Progress File, which is a nationally recognised document that features achievements of all aspects of their education. We are now working towards all students having their own ePortfolio.

Technology College

Hodgson School has been a Technology College since 1996. In 2007, we entered our fourth phase as a Technology College.

Students have access to some of the best ICT technology here at Hodgson. Pivotal to their learning is an interactive website called the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Teachers use the VLE to upload their lessons to display on a classroom’s interactive whiteboard. Students are then able to review or complete lessons and homework on any computer with Internet access, 24/7. Any homework completed on the VLE can be emailed directly to the teachers, who are also able to check, at any given time, which students have or haven’t done their homework. Special arrangements can be made to give extra Internet access to students without a home computer.
           
We are committed to providing our students with an excellent education in a technologically advanced environment. The whole school is equipped throughout with the latest advances in technology. The school has six ICT suites and six mobile suites of computers on wheels. Each classroom has a network point and interactive whiteboard, which is linked to our curriculum network and the Internet.

As a Technology College, we have been able to provide additional resources in the subjects of Design Technology, Science, Mathematics and ICT. We have also, however, incorporated technological developments in Music and Art as part of this status. These are all used to enhance learning and raise attainment.
           
We encourage community use of our facilities. We share our state-of-the-art resources with other local primary and secondary schools, to ensure that our specialist knowledge benefits as many members of the community as possible. ICT is also at the core of the adult education courses we offer here at Hodgson, run in partnership with further education providers Myerscough College and the Adult College Lancaster.
           
Technology College status at Hodgson is not just about computers and machines. It is about young people and how the school makes this equipment work to enhance their learning and raise academic standards. Students who attend Hodgson will be preparing for a leading role in the technologically advanced world that they inherit.

It has been proposed by the Government that all secondary schools should be able to provide real time information on each student by September 2010. This will give parents encrypted electronic access to their own child’s attendance data, behaviour management information and achievement and timetable details. Hodgson is set to be one of the first school’s in the country to launch its version of the Learning Gateway.