Sixth Form Student Bulletin
Week beginning Monday 9th March 2015 (Week B)
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Tuesday 10th March: Year 12 and 13 Mock Exam Results Assembly
Thursday 12th March: Year 12 and 13 Parents’ Consultation Evening
Friday 13th March: Comic Relief Day
Tuesday 24th (am) and Wednesday 25th (pm) March: Mock re-sits
Monday 29th– Friday 3rd June: Year 12 Work Experience Week
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Results
Your mock results will be given out in assembly on March 10th. If you do not
pass a mock (gain an E grade) you are required to re-sit the exam on the
morning of Tuesday 24th or the afternoon of Wednesday 25th March. The
system of re-sits is one that most universities use and helps to ensure you are
not going to take an exam in the summer which you are very likely to fail. In
the two weeks between the results and the re-sits, if you are involved, you will
receive support with exam revision techniques as well as help from your
subject staff. This will ensure you are able to improve as long as ,of course,you
put the work in. We used this system last year and in the vast majority of cases
students involved improved massively and were then ready to revise and
achieve in the summer. If you are in Year 12 and have a re-sit you will not go to
Enrichment on Wednesday afternoons until after the exams. You will work in
the Common Room and receive help on revision techniques etc from Year 13
mentors and Mrs Livings.
Parents’ Evening on Thursday
Please ensure you have made appointments with your teachers.This is such an
important event in terms of assessing your mock perfomance and looking
forward to how you can achieve your best in the summer exams. If your
parents can’t come please come yourself-make appoinments in the usual way.
Having the chance to talk with your staff in a really focussed way is not an
opportunity to be missed.
The Common Room
The Library Quiet Room is open to work in until 4.00pm each day. During break
and lunch times when the Common Room is noisy it is essential that this space
is quiet for those people wanting to work. If the Common Room seems too full
for you and friends to sit in during the lunchtime please feel free to use H8.
If you want a space for group work during the day please see Mrs Booth who
will find an empty classroom for you.
Remember the Common Room is open until 6.00pm every day for you to work
in.
Mobile Phones
Are you addicted to your phone? If so now is the time to tackle it as we head
towards exams. Revising/working with your phone next to you and not turned
off is bound to affect the effectiveness of your revision. Why not put your
phone in a different room or keep it in your bag and check it during break or
lunch time. Mrs. Booth is very happy to look after your phone for you whilst
you work if that helps relieve the temptation.
Red Nose Day
Please get involved in this event, the more people that participate and help on
the day, the more money we can raise. For £1 you can wear fancy dress
(please don’t spend lots of money on this, if you already have an outfit, recycle
it and wear it again). You can wear school uniform (appropriate wear only!) or
you can wear one of the Sainsbury’s or TKMax’s Red Nose T-Shirts (£ goes
towards Comic Relief). Face painting will be available on Friday morning for
those who want to make their faces ‘funny for money’.
The following activities are planned:
Football match between staff and students (Thursday the 12th March)
Raffle of signed Nottingham Forest Football,
Cake Sales,
Tombola stall
Sweets
Open Mic (please see Callum if you want to sing/tell a joke etc.)
Hot Dogs
Face Painting
Stocks
Photo Booth
Sports Activities
Great British Ice Off
Tutor Groups have arranged the following:
CY/JG Leg Waxing
LXG Cake Sale
GB Serving tea and cakes at break time
Other tutor groups are still deciding on their contribution……
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Charity Meeting
A Charity Meeting to finalise arrangements for Red Nose Day will be held in H8
on Wednesday at 12.20 pm.
It is important that our Head Girl and Head Boy attend along with Deputies and
House Captains please.
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Year 13 Geography Revision Classes starting this Monday
Mr Smith has set up revision classes after school for A2 Geography students,
more details will follow and a copy will also be displayed in the Common
Room for your information.
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Enrichment: Cookery Group
Please ensure you collect the recipe each week from the teacher for the
following week. The recipes are thought out to give you a wide range of
cooking skills to give you more independence when you leave home.
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Book Tokens
Last Thursday was World Book Day: a celebration of authors, illustrators, books
and reading; an occasion marked in over 100 countries across the globe. This
year is the 18th World Book Day and the main aim of it is to encourage reading
and an exploration of the pleasures of books. Enough Book Tokens are
provided by National Book Tokens Ltd (publishers and booksellers) to provide
more than 14 million children and young people with one, which is nearly
every under-18 in the country.
If you want to read more about World Book Day, visit the website:
http://www.worldbookday.com/
Careers Appointments
Several appointments have now been made for the next visit of the careers
advisor. Please let Mrs Booth know as soon as possible if you would like her to
set up an appointment for you. Having individualised help is a great
opportunity so please make the most of it.
Happy Birthday to:
Harry Brown – 10th March
Keenan Dalldorf – 11th March
Jennifer Brown 13th March
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Year 12 Work Experience June 29th-July 3rd
Please keep Mrs Booth up to date with your arrangements. We have to
organise risk assessments so the sooner we know where you are hoping to go
the better. If you haven’t yet completed one of the work experience forms
headed Me2wrk please see Mrs Booth.
Year 12s – Community Service Opportunity
Could you act as a mentor for a Year 11 student with physical needs?
Mrs Ball from the SEN department is looking for a considerate, caring
student who could give up some free time, once a fortnight, to take the
student into Kimberley or on the bus to Eastwood (Mrs Ball would
accompany) to help the student build up his social and interaction skills.
If you are interested please see Mrs Booth. This would be particularly
worthwhile for someone thinking of a future in nursing, medicine,
teaching or social work.
Year 12
University-planning ahead
We will do a lot of work with you on university applications after your AS
exams (such as taking you to a Higher Education Exhibition which all the
universities attend) but this website may be of interest to you as a tool
to aid understanding www.ukuniversitysearch.com as well as ucas.com
Medical School Applications Conference 2015
Med Applications is a new innovative resource designed to help students with
the process of applying to medical school. The Conference will take place on
the 15th April at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Please see www.supportingyourfuture.com/medapplications for a full
programme and further information.
Summer Schools opportunity 2015
Lancaster University have an extensive range of summer schools, workshops
and activities:
For students in year 12 only during the academic year 2014-15
All the summer schools are for students who meet one or more of our widening participation criteria
and who would benefit from an intensive introduction to academic life. Information regarding the
criteria can be found at www.lancaster.ac.uk/schools/summer-schools. Summer schools are FREE for
students who meet this criterion.
To book a place on any of the summer schools, students must complete the appropriate application
form available from our website www.lancaster.ac.uk/schools/summer-schools
Year 13
 University offers and finance - What to do?
Please don’t reply to offers without discussing your choices with Mrs Livings.
The best advice at this stage is to wait until you have your mock results and
have discussed them before deciding. A lot of universities are making
unconditional offers this year and these need careful consideration.
Unconditional offers- these are a big concern this year across the country. Our
main worry is that the temptation is to not push yourself once you receive such
an offer to gain the best A level grades, as well as the fact that you may end up
accepting the unconditional offer rather than pushing yourself to go to the
best place for you. Remember A levels are not just for university but for life.
You will be asked for your grades throughout your working life and if the
course you get on to at university, with an unconditional offer, turns out not to
be a course you want to stay on then you are stuck if your A level grades are
poor. Please ask yourself why the university is making you this offer? Is it the
best place for you? Has the offer changed your attitude to school and
achievement?
Some of you who have received these offers are working as hard as ever and it
is not affecting you, but already staff have noticed a difference in attitude with
some people who have gained unconditional offers. This is also calling in to
question the references that have been written and is putting staff in a difficult
moral position as the references (we have been re-reading them this week) are
now not a reflection of the work ethic we are witnessing in a small minority of
students.
 Finance applications:
https://www.gov.uk/student-finance-register-log and if in doubt ask Mrs Livings
Apprenticeship Opportunities
 Apprenticeship help for Year 13
On Fridays after school Mrs Livings is available to help anyone applying
for apprenticeships or employment. Please come along or see her and if
you can’t make Fridays a different time for help can be set up.
Visit www.careermap.co.uk – the quick and easy way to search for
apprenticeships in your area
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Financial help in the Sixth Form
If your family circumstances change during your time in the 6th Form and this
leads to financial hardship please come to see us so that we can see if it is
possible for you to access the bursary fund.
News Item of the Week
Ebola outbreak: Liberia releases last patient
Liberia has released its last Ebola patient after going a week without any new cases of the virus,
according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Beatrice Yardolo, 58, left a Chinese-run treatment centre in the capital Monrovia after two weeks of
treatment.
Nearly 10,000 people have died from Ebola, the vast majority in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
WHO officials say there were 132 new cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone in the week to 1 March.
It is the first time since May 2014 that Liberia has had no new cases of the virus, the officials added.
Ms Yardolo, an English teacher, said she was "one of the happiest persons on earth" as she headed
home from the treatment centre in Monrovia's Paynesville district.
She was the last patient undergoing treatment for the disease in Liberia.
But WHO officials have warned that populations are so mobile in the region that there could easily be
fresh outbreaks in Liberia.
"We look at the three countries as really a single country, so while it's good news that Liberia itself has
no new cases, the populations are so mobile in that region that there could easily be re-importations
of cases," said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl.
"We have to get down to zero in all three countries before we can consider this thing beaten."
The final stage of testing of an experimental Ebola vaccine will begin in Guinea on 7 March, according
to the WHO.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said that if a vaccine is found to be effective, "it will be the first
preventive tool against Ebola in history".
"An effective vaccine to control current flare-ups could be the game-changer to finally end this
epidemic and [be] an insurance policy for any future ones," WHO Assistant Director-General MariePaule Kieny said.
'Unsafe burials continue'
Ebola is still however far from eradicated in Sierra Leone, which recorded 81 new cases, including 26
in the capital Freetown.
"The number of confirmed Ebola virus disease deaths occurring in the community in Guinea and
Sierra Leone remains high, suggesting that the need for early isolation and treatment is not yet
understood, accepted or acted upon," the WHO statement said.
"Unsafe burials continue to occur, with 16 reports of unsafe burials in both Guinea and Sierra Leone,
respectively," it said.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Tuesday called for a "Marshall Plan" for the Ebolaaffected countries of West Africa.
She was referring to the massive US aid programme for Europe launched after World War Two.
BBC News website
Thoughts for this week (chosen with mock results and Comic Relief in mind-thanks to Melissa
Robertson for the first one.)
'Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that
counts'
Winston Churchill
“It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
Mother Teresa