Support and Guidance in the Sixth Form
Tutor Period
Each group is a mixture of both Year 12 and 13 students. Once a week, your tutor group will meet with your tutor. A range of activities will be covered to include UCAS personal statements, study skills, reviews and file checking. Also, all students will be given opportunities to develop the key skills through a range of activities. The focus of the first term is citizenship, where each tutor group prepares for the end of term MUNGA or EU Council.
Pastoral Programme
The Speakers’ programme is on Mondays - Period 1. This period is the formal opportunity for all important Sixth Form notices and business to be carried out. Visiting speakers frequently enhance these Monday morning sessions. We have had speakers to address a range of interesting, stimulating and controversial issues. These sessions are also used for Further and Higher Education advice.
Academic Tutoring
Students will have individual Academic Tutorials with their form tutor or senior staff on a termly basis. Students will be required to write a self-assessment and identify targets for the next term; these targets will be reviewed at the following tutorial. Aspirational target grades (ALPs), based on GCSE results, will be used to monitor progress.
Study Periods
All students need to use their free lessons productively. These lessons should never be used for outside commitments e.g. employment.
Higher Education
The school provides extensive personal counselling from both tutors and careers advisors. Many departments arrange residential visits to individual universities. In previous years Chemistry students have spent two days at Leeds University gaining hands-on experience of their equipment; scientists have gone to Switzerland to learn about the mysteries of nuclear Physics; French and German students spent two weeks on work experience in France and Germany; Religious Studies students have visited Oxford University for Theology lectures.
There is a programme of outside speakers who address Year 13 on Monday mornings. These are informed about current developments in tertiary education and can update the students on issues such as accommodation or the complexities of finance. Some are themselves university students who can give a broad picture of life at a higher education institution. Others are more prestigious like the editor of the Push Guide to universities which is the most comprehensive independent guide on the market.
Students are encouraged to visit a number of colleges so that they are able to compare what is on offer and to realise how different one is to another. The school advertises Open Days when the universities offer a full programme for visiting students. It is, however, important that students do not miss too much of their education visiting universities since they may also be called for interview.
There is also advice on how to prepare for interview, especially at Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Where possible we give students help with training for all the extra tests like BMAT and LNAT. | 
