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An Introduction from Mr G. Owen

G Owen's Photo

Welcome to the Sixth Form blog/news page. I will post on here at least every Monday and more often as the occasion demands. It’s not a formal site as such and will not replace official announcements and letters but its intention is to reflect on sixth form experiences and events, to keep abreast of good practice in Post 16 education and to alert students and parents to opportunities now and for the future.

I know students have plenty of work to do in their A level subjects but I have an impassioned view that it is what they do beyond that which can often make the real difference in personal development, employability and fulfilment. So you’ll hear plenty on here about those opportunities.

Just to kick off I’ll mention three of my favourites:

future learn
TED Talks
Reading books

 

TED talks is an online video library of thousands of talks on a huge variety of subjects. Always interesting, usually challenging and often entertaining.

Future Learn offers free online courses from universities and specialist organisations. I’ve done two so far and several students have taken them up. Have a look – they’re brilliant

Reading books makes a difference.

Have a great 2017!

 

 

Newsletter 5 - 6th February 2017

Last week was fantastically busy for all sorts of reasons. On Wednesday we visited Kingsbury school to talk to their year 11 students about our sixth form provision and on Friday we welcomed eighteen Kingsbury students to a mini open day which they tell me they enjoyed tremendously. We have had a number of excellent applications from external students and I will be visiting their schools for consultations in the coming weeks. It's always great to have a number of new faces in the sixth form to bring fresh ideas and perspectives and this year looks like we could be making a record number of external offers.

Some readers may be aware of the Coleshill Grammar School Trust - a charity which supports the education of local young people. We have made a number of bids to support the growth of the sixth form and have been successful with all of them so many thanks to the trust. We will be using the money in a number of ways but the key requests were for funding to support the following:

  • A second school minibus to allow more transport options for external students and flexibility for trips and visits.
  • Funds to support the sixth form learning environment; in particular to enhance the provision in the library.
  • Support for students to attend Outward Bound leadership courses - it's a brilliant charity which provides first class experiences. Check them out on http://www.outwardbound.org.uk/

We welcomed an ex student Leigh Trevis to address our assembly last Friday. Leigh is European Training Manager for Expeditors who are based at Hams Hall and offer Global Logistics Services. Leigh told us about his interesting route to this role, showing that young people now need to be very flexible in their approaches to employment in the 21st Century.  We've also arranged for two of our students to visit the company to explore apprenticeship opportunities.

University partnerships are important too and we have events in March with Warwick University and Clare College, Cambridge. More on these nearer the time.

The six nations rugby produced some thrilling stuff, even if the quality wasn't great. England scraped through, the Scots did what they've been threatening to do for some time and the Welsh eventually found the way to the try line. Stuart Hogg is the first to nail down a Lions' place!

My book recommendation this week is 'His Bloody Project' by Graeme Macrae Burnet. It's excellent!