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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 17 - 22nd May 2017

May half term coming up and we’re well into the exam season already – students have been in exams for Art, Photography, Business Studies, Law and Maths and there are plenty more to come. As ever the educational landscape doesn’t remain static and for year 12 these exams are a mixture of AS and internal exams – there’s currently a bit of a mash up with some A levels being in the old fashioned ‘linear’ mode that you would recognise and others still having the AS halfway house. One day…

I was interested to see the Guardian Universities league table published last week:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2017/may/16/university-league-tables-2018

You have to take these with a pinch of salt because different things are measured in each table but it’s worth a glance when doing the research for applications which will happen this autumn. It’s fascinating to see Coventry in 12th place above such luminaries as Exeter and LSE but again it’s a case of needing to read between the lines. This is why we make sure that students and parents are geared up to do the right sort of research when choosing courses. One of the best places to go is to the UCAS ‘widget’ on our website which can be found at the following link.

https://www.thecoleshillschool.org/sixth-form/higher-education

It might not surprise you that 9 out of the 10 best Unis for Hospitality and Tourism in the Guardian guide are ‘new’ universities but for Mathematics 9 out of the top 10 are traditional universities. There are many and varied reasons for these differences and it’s a case of starting research early, asking the right questions and visiting the places. I am often surprised at students’ ignorance of locations in the UK which is why I have a big map up in the common room! With modern communications and transport nowhere is really that far away.

Today is the last chance to register to vote for any of our students who might have somehow missed getting on to the electoral roll. Here’s the link;

https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Wishing all readers a good Whit week. Does anyone else call it that still? Reminds me of one of my favourite poems of all time, 'The Whitsun Weddings' by Philip Larkin.