Term 1: Habits, Hardwork and Planning
following on from last weeks Steps to Success evening event, please take the time to familiarise yourself with the support on offer for year 11 students during term 1 and 2. Making a strong start to the year by establishing study and work habits is one of the best things student can do to support themselves long term. By preparing for GCSEs and Post 16 from the get go students can reduce feelings of anxiety and overwhelm making them better able to thrive in the Academy.
To be competitive in their summer exams students need to do at least two hours of work a day after school, and at least three hours at the weekend as a matter of routine. Our students should aim to feel proud of themselves for their hard work, not any specific grades they may or may not eventually achieve. By making the work the point, all our young people know they can be successful. Our hope is that good results will be a side effect of this, but we don’t want disappointed students who have worked hard to feel we aren’t proud of them.
To help students to ‘see’ the road ahead we will refer to this graphic frequently. As you can see the next milestone is the start of PPEs in the first two weeks of next term:
I cannot emphasize enough how important 100% attendance is during the PPEs. This is valuable GCSE practice and over time reduces students stress response to exams allowing them to focus on showing off what they know! We do not run extra catch up exam dates for missed assessments, if your child is feeling under the weather on the day please contact the Academy and we are able to discuss a bespoke plan for the day.
To support decision about Post 16 destinations all of our students will be having one:one sessions with our Careers Leader Ms Mujkic ([email protected]). We advise making the most of open days/evenings to inform decisions, dates for local providers can be found here:
Finally, After Academy Intervention is now up and running. We track attendance to ensure that we are celebrating effort and intervening with support where needed. We expect all students to pick up intervention sessions each week, they are led by subject specialists and are more effective than independent study at home alone. timetable below:
