Dear Parents/Carers,

Another week has flown by for Year 11, with several things to share with you! 

Firstly, we held our ‘Winter Social’ on Wednesday, which was an opportunity for students to socialise, enjoy one another’s company and have a chance for some fun and laughter. It was a very enjoyable evening and was fantastic to see over 120 of our students attending and having a good time. The evening consisted of a quiz, lots of live music, made to order pizza and a special guest appearance from the outstanding comedian Keith Farnan who performed a 40-minute set for our students! I hope all students had a great time and the event will leave many positive lasting memories for them. 

I would especially like to extend a huge thank you to Oliver, Freddie, Ano and Alfie, who provided an exceptionally well put together (and performed!) music setlist throughout the evening, with their incredibly high level of talent. 

From an academic standpoint, Year 11 have really hit the ground running. They will have received their mock scores without grades at this point, but next Wednesday, 22nd January, they will receive their full grades in a mini ‘results day’ format. This is to give students the opportunity to experience the process that will take place in the Summer. In addition to communication from Mr Matthews surrounding this, I would like to highlight that this process is to support our students. The entire mock process is centred around giving insight into areas of development within students’ learning so that their teachers can work with them to ensure they have all the support they need to improve. It is important that this is the main focus of the mock results and that students understand that these results are there to guide their future learning and journey towards achieving their maximum potential. 

Making revision a yearlong programme is something we have strived to do since the beginning of the academic year which very much continues to be a key focus for all Year 11 teachers. Below are some of the key points from our programme of study both so far and continuing to move forward. 

• Pathway to Glory Evening in September
• ‘Get Revising’ plans created in tutor time, giving a platform for students to plan revision timetables 
• Students taught ‘how’ to revise through delivery in the tutor time programme
• A minimum of 17 revision sessions in tutor time thus far, resulting in over 8 hours worth of revision in the mornings!
• Opportunities to have had intervention during tutor times, having specialist teaching in small groups for targeted students
• Action Jackson – visit from external motivational speaker to focus on motivation, revision and well-being 
• Character Development Day dedicated to learning how to revise, skills that can be used for retrieval and how to ‘stick with it’ through two nationally renowned guest speakers
• Intervention sessions for 5 different subjects in half term 1 and 2, totalling 35 targeted intervention sessions and 35 open sessions, including a homework club. This means in term 1 alone, there were 70 intervention sessions for students over a 13 week time frame! This averages at just over 5 per week!
• Intervention sessions for 8 different subjects in half term 2, totalling a projected 29 targeted intervention sessions and 23 open sessions in just 6 weeks! This means in term 2, we are projecting 52 sessions in a 6 week time frame! This averages at over 8 sessions per week! 
• At least 30 minutes per week dedicated to revision in tutor time in half term 3, totalling in a further 3 hours of revision time (at a minimum) in January and February. 

As we move forward and get ever closer to the GCSE exams, students will continue to be supported in their journey. Please do keep continuing to support your child at home and really push them to complete their homework and revision tasks outside of school as well as at school. Both academic and pastoral support is always available here at Wollaston, so please do not hesitate to get in touch if your child needs any additional support, or if you have any questions at all. 

Kind Regards,