Salisbury 6th Form College Weekly College Update

Friday 2nd July 2021

Our training day on Monday was incredibly productive and allowed staff to reflect on the successes of the year and to collectively focus on priorities for the next academic year. And what a year it has been for our whole community!! A Trust wide afternoon session was led by our Director of Learning Nicola Bull in the afternoon, bringinging together networks of staff to enhance the collaboration and sharing of outstanding practice across the MLP primary and secondary academies.

On Tuesday we welcomed our new students for their Fresher Day, and it was incredibly successful, with the inclusion of our year 12 and 13 students remoting into sessions to share their experience of life as an S6C student and being part of such a special community. The day included the presence of Miss Bellamy from Wyvern St Edmunds over the lunchtime period to talk to students about our enhanced enrichment offer that we will have on Wednesday afternoons in collaboration with the school. From September we intend having a wider range of clubs and societies running on both sites and will be able to utilise the sports facilities on the school campus. A detailed programme of the activities will be launched with all students in September.

Year 12 students returned to college on Wednesday and have started to receive back their assessment papers and results from their tests. It is important that we all recognise the challenges our students have faced this year and we must congratulate them all for the resilience and effort they have shown. All students will be given individual feedback on their achievement and they will be set reflection tasks and activities to complete over the summer holidays – to close down some of the gaps in their understanding and knowledge. These summer tasks will be set for them in Google classroom. Where students have achieved lower grades, support conversations will take place to ensure students realise the importance of addressing weaknesses over the summer, and that they will be retested early next term to ensure that some of those areas have been addressed and strengthened.

We are looking forward to a range of exciting personal development activities for students over the coming weeks prior to the end of term. Details about our careers event for Destinations Day and Enrolment to Year 13 are explained in this update by Rebecca Anderson. Further details about the end of term virtual work experience will be sent out to students and parents next week.

Have a lovely weekend.

Louise
Head of College

Freshers Day – Kathryn Clarkson, Business Manager

On June 29th S6C were excited to welcome prospective new students through the doors for the first face to face Freshers Day since 2019. Although the event was staged under COVID control measures, this did not dampen the atmosphere or excitement of both staff and students at being able to meet teachers, look round the college, and make new friends. Students were able to discuss their subject choices and undertake activities such as a ‘Dragon’s Den’ pitch in Business and practical experiments involving water daphnia in Biology. In Software Design and Development students were tasked with coming up with concepts for new technology which generated an impressive range of ideas such as robots for picking up all forms of litter, technology to detect and remove plastic from the sea and apps monitoring health and wellbeing. Current students also joined the day via virtual links to answer questions about college life and why they had chosen S6C.

It was lovely to see so many smiling faces and S6C is really looking forward to welcoming them into our community in September.

Dr Sally Tye (Humanities Faculty lead), Rich Eno, Creative Faculty lead) and Steve Price (Business) led a cookery demonstration to students on how to cook a cheap, nutritious meal as a student. As a result it is likely that the baking club will be more popular next term.

Character Curriculum – Rebecca Anderson, Pastoral Lead

July 5th Destinations Day

A carousel of talks has been planned from experts in their fields: Identifying strengths and making decisions, Researching university choices, Finding and securing a job after College, Employability and career planning, Apprenticeships awareness. All students will attend all talks to encourage them to be open minded and well informed so they can find the path that is perfect for them and which will inspire them to build their skills and interests and self confidence.

This will be followed by an afternoon of meet and greet sessions with external guests, including the owner of a boutique in a bus (who will be bringing the bus), a lawyer, engineer, aeronautical engineer, university students at a range of stages, teacher trainee, emerging playwright, nurse, paramedic, primary school teacher, dementia care, physiotherapy, Careers in Sport, Financial Services provider to Premier League Footballers and Hollywood stars, nursery apprenticeship provider, and more!

Some talks are online and some onsite and guests will be socially distanced from students and staff. Students who are self isolating can join the online talks and remote into the live talks by Google meet, by arrangement with their teachers. All other students should be onsite for this much needed experience. Students have a timetable for the day with all the compulsory talks and options, so they can plan over the weekend. If any student is unsure about what their experience will look like then they can contact their tutor for clarification.

July 9th Enrolment to Year 13 Day

All students need to attend this full day where they will register for a teacher reference from college, check that they have completed their Careers Passport and have a one hour Career Pilot Pathway Planner (which will indicate what further support may be needed in September), and, most importantly have a 1:1 review of the year (progress, attendance, careers, and wellbeing) with their tutor.

Some students may need to see the Faculty Leads if they are going to need additional summer work to support their progress to Year 13 (in addition to personalised tasks that will be set for the class). Tutors will then be able to complete the enrolment into Year 13. We realise that some students will have to wait for their booked slot so we have also arranged some online workshops from external national providers and an opportunity to do a mock interview or have their CV checked, as well as a menu of online talks and guidance on a range of Destinations topics. We are just waiting for the last few workshop confirmations and then students will get a menu and checklist for the day and will be able to sign up for their tutor slot.

Students will need to bring their laptops and headphones on both of these days

Go Ape Trip – Luke Muchmore Teacher of Sport

On Wednesday, 25 sport students attended the visit to Go Ape in Itchen Valley Country Park to complete the high ropes course. Overall it was a great experience with all students completing all 5 stages, despite initial nerves from some students. This trip contributes towards their Practical Skills in Sport Unit, where they had to complete an outdoor and adventurous activity, and learn the health and safety requirements for this type of activity.