Newsletter to Parents of
AbbeyfieldSchool Sixth Form Students
November 2010
Dear Parents
Welcome to Progress Day
Thank you for giving up the time to attend our Progress Day. I hope that you all gain a lot of positive comments about your sons and daughters and feel that sensible targets arise that will help you, your child and staff in the quest for the highest grades possible in the summer.
There can always be an element of ‘What is the point of Progress Day? My son/daughter always does well (or not) and my attendance doesn’t seem to make any difference. In any case, they are now so advanced in their learning that I can’t help them any more.’ Let me assure you that your attendance alone does indicate your interest in your child and his/her learning. Research tells us that parental interest is the single most important factor contributing to a child’s success. You may not be able to help them with homework any more but you can help just by asking questions about their learning, offering a listening ear and offering advice (like ‘Why don’t you see your teacher about it if you are worried?’ and by following up the result of such a meeting). We will offer the technical support. Working together is the key.
Generally, this Progress Day, the comments from tutors will be positive. We have a brilliant set of Sixth Formers, who are working hard and making an excellent contribution to the Sixth Form and the rest of the school. I am very proud of their achievements so far this year, as I know the rest of the staff are. However, we are a long way from the ‘finishing line’ and students cannot afford to sit back and admire their work yet! Hopefully, they will continue to work in such a fashion. In particular the following students deserve a lot of credit for perfect ‘good’s on their first grade sheet:
Abigail Roach, Gemma Rowland, George Hedley, Abby Furniss, Holly White, Charlotte Rainbow, Paige McCrea, Tzaddi Paul, Rebecca Harby, Megan Williams, Alex Popely, Sam Bedwell, Ash Buchanan and Lisa Saundery
The following students had near perfect grade sheets and deserve a good deal of praise too: Tara Williams, Kelly Bennett, Jesica Mae Rosales, Emily Pepper, Passy Vokes, Hannah Holt, J’nea Wright, Dav Singh Thandi, Hollie Ellis, Bethany Edmonds, Sasha Challenor, Isabelle Piorkowska, Amy Newton, Rebecca Lambdon, Laura Heasman, Victoria Ubachukwu, Vanessa Tam, Harry Clark, Mehmet Tercan, Beth Hannelly, Anwar Akbur, Josh Potter, Sally Ellis, Jake Mills, Adam O’Neill, Krissy Powell, Sarah Black, Holly Harrison, Mel Hillyard, Jackie Payler, Lucy Roberts, Charlotte Barford, Brandon Brown, Gary Amos, Briony Banks and Shanice Arrisol
Of course, we do have a few students who are not doing everything they need to be doing, particularly in Year 12; they have a majority of gradings at ‘inconsistent’ or worse. This needs to be nipped in the bud quickly! We will expect the student to follow their teachers’ advice to the letter so that we can see early improvements. ‘Inconsistent’ can quickly become ‘poor’ unless remedial action is taken. I would like to see ‘inconsistent’s (and ‘poor’s for that matter) turned into ‘satisfactory’s (at least) by the next Grade Card. Hopefully, today’s meeting will help guide your child towards the action required.
Evidence of Success
I am pleased to say that all the data we have to have suggests great strides forward in achievement at Abbeyfield’s Sixth Form. Our average points score for this last year was officially confirmed as 839.7 (which would have made us the third placed state school on last year’s league table, behind only NSB and Moulton); rising from our actual position of 25th state school in last year’s table. This is a really pleasing outcome and reflects a lot of hard work on the part of students and teachers. I can assure you that we have not taken any easy options in effecting this change; it has been done through the dialogue outlined above, with students, teachers and parents working together. The following web-page
shows last year’s table: .
The ‘new’ table is not published until January, 2011; clearly other schools may also have improved their scores too but, for the moment, I think we have reason to be proud of the progress being made at this school. It shows what is possible and I am very proud of everyone involved in this progress!
My preferred measure of success is CVA (Contextual Value Added); it shows how much students move from the end of GCSE to the end of A Level and puts the results in the context of what was truly possible for that cohort. Although our measure of 999.4 is not as good as I would like it, this year’s measure would place us 12th state school in the county table (as opposed to 26th in the actual table). This is supported by another external measure of value-added from ALPs which places us as grade 4 on a 9-point scale (up from 6 last year) which they categorise as ‘very good’ performance.
Another measure of success is that in a very competitive year for UCAS applications, last year all but one ofthirty twostudents who wanted to go to university got their first or second degree choice (therefore, avoiding Clearing). They went to universities as geographically dispersed as Chichester, Salford, Teeside and Aberystwyth to do courses as wide ranging as Policing and Criminal Investigation, Fashion Marketing, Business/Law, Nursing and Computer Games Programming. Eleven students chose to study locally at our very good university in Northampton.
Word is clearly getting around about the quality of our Sixth Form as twenty four students chose to join our Sixth Form from other schools. I believe much of that positive publicity is coming from parents of Abbeyfield students in discussion with other parents so I thank you for the support you are giving us.
Students developing their own learning community
It is clear that the staff of Abbeyfield have a big responsibility to ensure effective learning and preparation for adult life. This will surely entail the provision of quality learning experiences in classrooms, but it will also require the provision of lots of other learning experiences outside of the lesson too. Outside of lessons our aim will be to give students the chance to take responsibility, with support, for effecting change in their own learning environment and to give them the opportunity to take risks and try things they have never done before. We hope this will give them the confidence to take the independence of adult life in their stride when the time comes. As a result we have set up some important students bodies to make some of these decisions and to take charge of their own learning experiences:
Leading Students: In the summer term we held interviews for our new initiative of Leading Students:
Brandon Brown was selected to lead student mentoring in the Sixth Form, and has already raised a team of willing mentors. They are all waiting for training and will then get fully involved in supporting Year 12 (and younger) students who need it. The mentors will be
Physics - Louise Farmer Laura Smith, Chemistry - Jonathan Han; Biology - MoiraRatcliffe; Maths - Jessica Masters Laura Smith; English Literature - Briony Banks Alex Popely; Psychology - Vaishali Modhvadia Brandon Brown; Media - Samuel Bedwell Sally Ellis; Sociology - Vaishali Modhvadia Lisa Saundery; Drama - Gary Amos Lydia Robinson; French - Anna Morris; History - Paige McCrea; Travel and Tourism - Melody Hillyard; Business - Matthew Musgrove; Health & Social - Rebecca Harby; Textiles - Charlotte Barford; Art - Reece Otchery; Law - Chris Roberts; I.T - Adam O'Neil; P.E - Aaron Cooper
Mr Mills (Academic Mentor for the Sixth Form) and I are really grateful for this show of support and I know that Year 12 will learn a great deal from these peer mentors.The mentors will soon be having a day’s worth of training to help ensure they do a really effective and rewarding job.
Jake Mills and Tzaddi Paul were selected to lead the organisation of social activities. They have already organised a really successful first social event at Momo’s and have booked another for Christmas.
Alex Popely was selected to lead sporting activities for the Sixth Form and has already organised an inter-form zoneball competition which was won byAMK. An inter-from 5-a-side competition is coming soon.
Naomi Hogben and Sally Ellis have taken on the role of Sixth Form charity organisers; they have already organised successful events for Jeans for Genes (including a whole school Mufti) and for Macmillan (see below). They are now co-ordinating Children In Need activities not only for the Sixth Form, but also the rest of the school and have spoken to each year group’s assembly …. and we are only nine and a half weeks into the academic year!
The Leading Students were selected from a competitive field. Already, as you can see,I need to offer huge thanks to them for their efforts this term. They have been central to bringing the whole student body behind a number of projects and in achieving the successes that we’ve already had. I feel sure that they will keep up the good work!
Sixth Form Council: A council has been elected and has members from all tutor groups:
ABK Lauren Whelan Ed Simpson
AMK Lauren Parker Krissy Powell
JBL Tom Letts Thembi Luhana
JME Anwar Akbar Melody Hillyard
KMA Jade NewmanBeth Lee
MGS George Hedley Louise Farmer
PFT/SAS Chelsea Kirk Kate Hughes
PGS Kinga Zielinska Laura Smith
These students are tasked with bringing ideas from their peers about improvements we can make, debating those ideas and in passing information back to their tutor groups.
Since the last newsletter …
We received news from Martyn Marix Evans, who worked with our students on the audio tape for the Naseby Battlefield Project (with actor Robert Hardy) thathe entered the activity into the Northampton Heritage Awards 2010 and Abbeyfield won first place! We pass on congratulations to Year 13 students Gary Amos, Ashley Gardiner, Sam Bedwell, and Alex Popelywho took part in the project.
Most of our Sixth Formers take part in Community Leadership, volunteering to support someone somewhere. I had the following comments back on one of these students,Jonathan Han; I think it is representative of the experience that many other teachers and students get. ‘I just had to write this to commend one of your Year 13s.We were having a few maths problems in Target and I went searching for a 6th Former who might be able to help. Jonathan was that lucky find. What a lovely lovely lad. He came along and sat with us and a studentfor almost an hour explaining our maths problems. He was totally patient and lovely with our student. Our student was challenging him with questions and he helped her with everything she asked. It was an absolute pleasure meeting him. He is a credit to the 6th Form.’ So ‘thank you’ to him and all the others for the Community Leadership that they do.
Prior to half-term we held a balloon debate in Year 12 General Studies. Each form developed arguments to support a character from history and argued in front of the year group why the character should remain in a sinking balloon. Tom Letts, representing JBL, won the debate arguing in favour of Jesus Christ. Those also representing their respective tutor groups were Giles Stafford, Beth Hannelly, Emily Pepper, Rebecca Hounslow, Danielle Johnson, Ella Whitehouse, George Hedley, Passy Vokes, Anwar Akbur and Izzy Piorkowska. Well done to all; it is a really hard thing for students to do public speaking in front of a full theatre, especially when those present are their peers.
On the last day before half-term we had a range of fun activities to celebrate and to raise money for Macmillan, the hospice and care charity. We raised £170 for this special charity. Special thanks go to Leading Students Naomi Hogben and Sally Ellis for having set up the day and to all those who came in Halloween style fancy dress (especially Theo Bucur, Adam O’Neill and Jade Newman who won prizes for their efforts). During assembly we had apple bobbing and doughnut eating competitions. The former was won by Alex Popely and the latter by Brandon Brown.
Thank you
Special thanks goes to all those Sixth Formerswho turned up to help at the school’s Open Evening for Year 6 students (and their parents). These students epitomised the strength of the community spirit at Abbeyfield and helped make it a very successful evening.
Tregoyd
Towards the end of September members of the Sixth Form went on the annual outdoor education and bonding weekend to Tregoyd House in Wales. Those who went were: Josh Bengochea, Sam Bristow, Harry Clark, Ryan Hamilton, Craig Hawkins, George Hedley, Jay Henry, Will Howes, Josh Jobson, Adam Norris, Will Pettitt, Ben Popely, Michael Reilly, Tom Sampson, Giles Stafford, Amy Newton, Rachel Currie, Holly White, Gemma Rowland, Abi Roach, Faye Clarke, Becca Lambdon, Hannah Campbell, Sarah Farrow, Tara Williams, BeccaJoinson, Hannah Holt, Rachel Rowntree, Megan Fletcher, Emily Pepper, Jesica Mae Rosales, Danielle Johnson, Katie Arnold, Georgia Harrison, Chelsea Kirk, Lilian Hughes, Hollie Ellis, Jess Edwards, Toni Mandley and Emily Bloxham. All the staff who went thought the group was fantastically well-behaved and that their positive responses to the opportunities presented really helped to bond the group. Well done and thank you to all who went; students and staff.
Remembrance
The school appreciated the support of Lisa Saundery, Paige McCrea, Megan Williams, Alex Popely, Sally Ellis, Charlotte Rainbow, Lydia Robinson andNaomi Hogben with selling poppies, going around to tutor groups across the school in the days running up to Remembrance Day. I hope to be able to let you know how much they raised in the next newsletter.
World Recogntion
Ella Whitehouse, one of our year 12 students recently went to the World Hip-Hop Dancing Championships in Germany and came third in her class; a absolutely brilliant achievement. Prior to the summer, Ella auditioned for ‘Dance 4 CAT’ (Centre for Advanced Training) and after a successful audition she now trains every Saturday in Nottingham with elite dancers from all over the East Midlands. Ella is now helping students in the school by giving them the benefit of her tuition and experience by supporting in their dance lessons.
Looking forward…..
In order to facilitate a greater community feel to the Sixth form we have set up an Abbeyfield School Sixth Form page on Facebook. The page has a library of photographs that have been taken since I arrived at Abbeyfield and we hope that students will use the page to discuss school issues; you might want to ask your son or daughter to run through them to see what we have been up to. Already we have seen people asking peers about homework that has been set, which is a really positive use of the page. We have also used the page to flag-up events and tasks that need to be completed. We are hoping the students will now debate how they want to use and develop the page. Thanks to Mr Mills for all he has done to set up the page and for being the page master.
Fame
This year the school is putting on a production of Fame. The following Sixth Formers have successfully auditioned for roles, so well done to them: Sasha Challenor, Ella Whitehouse, Gary Amos, Sarah Farrow, Ed Simpson, Sam Bedwell, Holly White, Beth Hannelly, Anwar Akbur, Becca Joinson, Gemma Rowland andTara Williams. I look forward to seeing the show!
Vocational Support
Not everyone wants to go to university, so we have had Mary Richardson, from Aimhigher, working with those students in Year 13 who think they want to do something more practical when they leave school. Mary has been doing this kind of work for a very long time, so I feel sure those students will be well supported. If your son or daughter needs her support, please let me know. Jayne Walker, from Connexions, is also starting a weekly drop-in at school exclusively for Sixth Formers to support them with their decision-making.
Module exams
As some Year 12 and 13 students found out last term to their cost, a few evenings of revision will not be enough. Students need a longer term, planned revision campaign. Hopefully you can help us by ensuring that enough revision gets done at home, particularly when the Christmas festivities are out of the way during the holiday period. Students (and parents) can go to the ‘Study Skills’ section of the Sixth Form area of the AbbeyfieldSchool web-site for more information about revision.