Dear All,
I hope you and your families are safe and well at this time. We are incredibly proud of how you are dealing with the latest lockdown; you have shown great resilience and strength of character. Your attendance to class has been great (well above 90% as a year group) and by attending lessons you are putting yourself in the best possible position for whatever we are going to face in the summer. Your December Mid-Term results were our best ever and will be considered when awarding the Centre Assessed Grades (CAG’s) in the summer. In short, you are in a really good place academically.
As I write, Boris has just announced that schools will remain shut until at least early March. At present, the only certainty is that things are uncertain! But the key thing to remember is that NT6 has got your back. You are our priority, Year 13 is at the forefront of every decision the school makes, we want you to leave school with the best possible grades to allow your future to be all you want it to be.
I wanted to let you know the current situation and outline the key issues concerning you at this time. I hope the information below is useful and gives you an idea of what may happen in your final 2 terms at NT. A word of warning however, the information below may change at any time!
Vocational Students
Well done to all of you who sat Vocational exams in January. Your conduct was superb. Staff are very confident in your ability to do well; your lessons and preparation over the Christmas break will have put you in a great position to have smashed it! If your grades are not what you wished for when results area released in March, we hope that the same protocols will be used as last year – namely that the higher grade of an actual exam result or CAG will be used, along with your coursework marks to award your final grades. Vocational and A Level Coursework and NEA assignmentsIt is vital that all coursework and NEA tasks are completed to as high a standard as possible as these will be considered alongside other data when deciding your Centre Assessed Grades.
A Level Final Assessments
We are still unsure of the finer details regarding the A Level final assessments in late May/early June. The government has told us that they are going to release exam questions for schools to use to produce their own tests at the end of the year. They are not calling them exams.
As yet, we do not know the content, type of question and timing of the release to schools. We can only assume that they will look like past paper questions and cover all content. As soon as we get more details, we will let you know immediately.
All the government information we have at present indicates that teachers will put these assessments together, and that the results of these will be used alongside mid-term, PPE, coursework/NEA data to arrive at a final CAG grade. The government’s expectation is that a broad range of topics will be tested using the types of questions normally used in exams. I hope schools will have control over the units and topics we test and think they will be like PPEs; Again, as soon as we get more guidance and information from exam boards, we will let you know.
Completing the curriculum
Most departments are in their usual place in the curriculum, and usually finish teaching it in March/April. It may be that you won’t cover the entire curriculum in some subjects. Please do not worry about this, staff will inform you of any decisions regarding finishing points once we know the government guideline. Remember, this is not a normal academic year! This means, if allowed, we will take into account the units you learned during (all) lockdowns and any extended teacher absence when designing the final assessments.
PPE’s
All ‘in-school’ tests are important in generating the Centre Assessed Grades (CAG’s). This means that you should prepare fully for the PPEs and final assessments. You will need to use the PPEs as practice and learn from any topics or skills that need improvement. Don’t stress about the grades, they are there to show you where you need to get better. Teachers will use them to help you improve for the final assessments. There is plenty of time to do this, and a timetable of the remainder of the year is outlined below.
THE PPE’S START ON MARCH 1ST. YOU NEED TO ASK YOUR TEACHERS ABOUT WHAT UNITS AND TOPICS THE PPE’S WILL TEST AS WELL AS THE TYPE OF QUESTIONS YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO ANSWER.
26th Jan – 12th Feb: Teaching weeks
12 Feb – 21st Feb: Half Term(Revision!)
22nd Feb – 26th Feb: PPE preparation
1st – 12th March: Year 13 PPE’s
15th March -2nd April: Teaching weeks (complete teaching of curriculum)
3rd April – 19th April: Easter Holidays (Revision!).
20th April – 24th May: Teaching and test preparation weeks
Late May/early June Final assessments. Dates not yet released!
If you need to talk to any of the Sixth Form Team about any of these issues, or indeed anything else, please ring the mobile or email us at nt6@tretherras.net.
Finally, remember that we have got you. YOU CAN DO THIS!
Yours sincerely
James Hammersley