period 7s are dodgy

Period 7s are after the regular day has finished. Period 6 finishes at 2.55pm, kids go home etc. But year 12s occasionally have period 7 till 3.45ish. Problem is that many of them treat is as optional, or they have conflicts with their part time jobs. There doesn't seem to be much follow up with those who don't show. It's a pain because I have to catch up those who wagged, while those who came along are penalised and patient untill we can move on.

Must be a better way - perhaps I can email those who were not there and expect them to do some catch up work before coming to the next class? Yeah, that sounds good - only some of the stuff we do is difficult to put in an email.

Y10 are frustrating too. They are just taking so long to complete any work - I have posted six 'blog tasks' on the class blog (blogaboutblogs.blogspot.com) but these guys don't seem to uinderstand what I'm on about. It looks as though there are a number of reasons for this, 1. that I havent modelled online writing very well; it is extremely difficult to model this stuff for a class when I don't have a data show or something like it. Inevitably I spend my time going to each individual and going through the same thing again again. Voice explanations just don't do the job (perhaps mine are just bad). So anyway, I kept some of them in through part of lunch hoping some more would get done. I need to be tougher on this bunch - they kind of get off very lightly - I mean I only have them two periods a cycle.

This online writing thing needs a rethink ... any suggestions