1. Enrichment

Our Enrichment Programme is very well-received by students and helps ensure a broad and balanced curriculum experience which supports all-round personal development. Students select from a very good range of opportunities and the offer is enhanced in January of each year.

This term, students have had the chance to refresh their choices from the existing offer or take up one of three new opportunities:

1. Online work experience
2. Volunteering as a Teaching Assistant in school
3. Volunteering in a local care home

There are obvious personal benefits to these opportunities but it is the ‘social currency’ or ‘feel good factor’ (knowing you are helping others) that is most key. As such, we were delighted to receive some really great feedback regarding 15 students who volunteer at one of the local care homes each week as part of the enrichment programme.   

2. Duke of Edinburgh Gold

  

Thanks to Mr Barrett and the staff team who, as part of the Enrichment mentioned above, recently led an intrepid team of Sixth Form students on their D.of.E Gold training expedition in the Peak District. Learning all sorts of outdoor skills in a beautiful environment, the students also enjoyed the benefits of team-building and the spiritual reinvigoration that exposure to nature offers – of real value given the challenges and demands faced by young people today more than ever. It is lovely that a number of them are addressing the volunteering aspect of D.of.E by being involved in the care home work referenced above – but also great that many non-D.of.Ers are also part of that team.

3. World Book Day

We were delighted that so many students and staff engaged in the recent World Book Day – an event which recognises the vitality of reading and reading for pleasure.

Especial recognition staff-wise must go to our very own Mr Piper and Mr Schofield who, as part of Team Maths, represented characters from The 101 Dalmatians (originally a novel before anyone writes in!)

 

 

Students were likewise actively-involved – while I can obviously pass as a young man, the potential to ‘not be seen’ means I can identify myself as the Where’s Wally on the left of the picture below. Well done Seren, Phoebe, Alice, Isabella, Archie, Caitlin and Ella for being creative, proactive and prepared to pose for a picture.

     

4. Sport

We are proud of our Sixth Form boys for making it to the latter stages of the inter-schools football cup competition. Ably marshalled by the P.E. Team and captained by Dan Anderson, the team were ultimately defeated by a marginally superior team (who shall go un-named for reasons of hurt pride and competition) in the quarter-finals. What was especially pleasing was the turn-out from the students to cheer on their peers. Maybe next year…

Elsewhere, a parent kindly advised us of local rugby success involving Sixth Form students - where Luis E, Owen T and Joe J have been representing South Warwickshire in the Gilbert Cup.

The competition takes four districts of Warwickshire and plays a round robin - and the South Warwickshire team came out as champions having beaten both North Warwickshire and Coventry District.

The U18 Warwickshire RFU full representative team for next season will come from these squads.

 

 

 

5. Curriculum, Data and Rewards   

In terms of the tutor time curriculum, recent coverage has been on World Class Basics – on ensuring high standards in areas such as punctuality, attendance, adherence to Dress Code and preparation for the examinations which straddled the half-term in February. In Year 12 and Year 13 and with reference to the discrete P.S.H.E. lessons offered, students have been exploring healthy relationships. It’s great that students respond so well to what sits outside of their more regular curriculum experience of A Levels and BTEC Level 3 lessons – from personal experience of delivering sessions, members of the Sixth Form Team really value the contributions made and are very impressed at the level of thought and engagement in evidence.

Data 2 will be available to parents by the time you read this missive. We are pleased that in both year groups students are broadly in line with previous cohorts at the same point in the year – given that the data we consult is relative, this is a positive indication that we hope to be on track for more excellent outcomes on an individual as well as a collective basis: academic success opens so many doors.

That said, there is never complacency and possibly some scope to do even more: it perhaps recalls the adage that ‘…you don’t need to be sick in order to get better’. While we want to celebrate successes and not create undue, counter-productive pressures and while, as this Bulletin hopefully demonstrates, we value the holistic development of the individual and the group it is important to aim high. Please see previous communications on how you can support your child with learning at home or email me for any advice: staylor@northleamington.co.uk.

For efforts in tutor time, across lessons and in school in general, students are accruing many reward points in Sixth Form – which is great to see. With their College affiliation noted, here are the Top 10 in each year:

Year 12                                                                                             Year 13

     

Well done to these students but to all of those who are so committed to their studies and to school life here at NLS.

We concluded the term with a reward celebration event where the 30 students with the most rewards points within each year group were invited to a Celebration Event and treated to pizza and chips in the canteen.

    

After Easter, all this hard work, commitment and success will come to fruition as we move in to a focused external and end-of-year examination season. Please recall what was suggested at the outset and within the body of this letter: that we do aspire to the very best academic outcomes but that we seek to achieve this in a student-centred way.

If you have any queries at any point, please do make contact via the usual communication sources.

The Year 12 Subject Evening will be taking place Monday 29 April and letters regarding booking appointments will follow after Easter and I will also write with information regarding study leave for Year 13 students, and our leaver celebrations including prom tickets.  

On behalf of myself, the Sixth Form Team and the school,  have a terrific Easter and I look forward to welcoming students back for the run-in to those all-important exams.

Yours sincerely

S A Taylor
Senior Assistant-Head-teacher (inc. Head of Sixth Form)