8th February 2019 Dear Parents/Carers,

Year 11 Pathway to Success

This is the next edition of a regular email to Year 11 parents. Every two weeks we will send out this bulletin with details of support offered over the coming weeks. As you would expect it is very important to make sure that students continue to complete coursework and attend any necessary extra sessions. Hopefully this email will help you as parents and carers to encourage your son or daughter to make the most of what is on offer.

As part of meeting the challenges of Year 11, I would ask that you encourage your child to act upon any advice or information received in the fortnightly emails. The impetus is now on them to put their best effort into achieving the results to which they aspire. Thank you for your continued support and please do not hesitate to contact me with any concerns in this vital year. Kind Regards, Mrs Melissa Walters Head of Year 11

General Exam Contingency Day

Contingency day for GCSE/GCE exams (should sustained national or local disruption arise during June exams) will be on Wednesday 26 June 2019

The government body that oversees exams, JCQ, has informed us that the contingency day

of 26 June has been added to the exam timetable for 2019. There is a possibility that if there is a crisis, that day may be used for an exam. As such, schools, colleges and students need to be aware that the timetable could change (if there is a crisis), and students can be expected to sit an exam on any day over the exam period.

Learning Bursary

If your son/daughter is in receipt of the Pupil Premium Grant they are entitled to support in buying equipment to support their study. To find out more please see the school website or email hudsonj@crispins.co.uk Students should have received their timetables for your Wave exams in March. If they don’t have them they need to collect from theirr tutor.

Pathway to Success

Tip for parents Encourage your child to empty their bag and file hand outs and information from lessons at the end of each day. They won’t seem important until they need them, at which point they are likely to be lost under a mountain of random papers.

Sixth Form St Crispin’s Sixth Form: Meetings

The Sixth Form Year 11 meetings are well under way and those of you have applied will have already had your meeting, or will have the date ready in the diary! As a team this is one of our favourite parts of the application process. It is the students who make our Sixth Form the success that it is, and we genuinely enjoy meeting you, hearing about your aspirations, and learning which of your strengths you can bring to our Sixth Form

community. Following your meeting, do keep an eye on your school inbox ensuring that you respond to offer emails by Friday 8th March. If you have any further questions following your Sixth Form meeting, do not hesitate to contact us and we will happily make time to talk with you. The Sixth Form Team: Ms Pearson, Deputy Headteacher

Mrs Collett, Head of Sixth Form Mr Yeatman, Deputy Head of Sixth Form Mrs West, Assistant Head of Year 13 Mrs Kirby, Assistant Head of Year 12 Mrs Lightfoot, Sixth Form Administrator

Key Dates

Wednesday 23rd

January to Friday 8th

February 2019

Students meet with members of the Sixth Form team to discuss

their options.

Friday 8th March 2019 Formal offer issued to students by Tuesday 26th February, 2019.

Students should confirm acceptance of this offer by Friday 8th

March.

Please note: the school may not be able to hold offers open

beyond this date.

Monday 1st July and

Tuesday 2nd July 2019

Sixth Form Induction Days

Business The next revision session for business will be on 27th February in SF3 run by Mrs Brown. The focus will be on sources of finance. All GCSE students are welcome, hover, teacher may send individual emails to parents of students who may particularly benefit from this.

Over the next few weeks GCSE students will be tested on unit 4 (4.3-4.6) and this is an area to concentrate study on. Please refer to the course companion.

Computer Science

Intervention sessions are now running every Thursday after school from 3-4pm. Some students have been actively asked to attend these sessions in order to make improvements based on their PPE results however these sessions are open to all. If your son or daughter can’t attend on Thursdays please encourage them to make alternative arrangements (e.g. Wednesday after school or the occasional lunch time) with Mr Hewlett.

Drama Component 1 - reflect on PPE feedback sheets and complete reflective tasks on PowerPoint - re-read N&C’s - re-watch TIKTBT, whole production or key moments Component 2 - Devising logs. Those that have not met the submission deadline will need to attend catch up sessions. These students will be notified via email. Catch up sessions will be every lunch time in the drama study room next week. Component 3 - those that have selected their extracts must begin learning lines and rehearsing

English Students now have a Language and Literature folder to help them organise their revision. Work is currently being undertaken in class to allow students to practice the skills needed for the Language papers. Students will record evidence in their folders that they have achieved the 10 mark challenge for each paper. Students are strongly advised to reread their Literature texts and use revision websites, such as SENECA to aid preparation for the summer examinations.

French & German

For French and German students need to be focusing on revising their grammar and in particular their use of the past, present and future tenses. They must have a secure knowledge of how to form each of these tenses including for the irregular verbs. There is

lots of useful information and exercises which they can use to help check/further their learning on the Doddle website (which all students have their own login for) and they can also look at other websites such as Languages Online and BBC Language Learning to practice some exam style questions.

Vocabulary learning should also be ongoing and any opportunity they have for listening to the foreign language or reading it should be taken. For example, they could read an article on the Internet in either French or German about a topic which interests them, or watch a film in French or German but with English subtitles to help them understand. All students have been e-mailed a copy of the PiXL Independence Booklet which they have been told they should begin to work through in order to help them revise/practice their grammar knowledge (copies of the booklets can be found here - French and German). Students should be completing (at least) 60 Credits’ worth of questions each week which can be made up of several Beginner Level questions, or one Proficient Level question etc. Students should ensure that they are doing at least 10 minutes revision/practice each day and that their learning includes re-visiting vocabulary learnt in Year 10 as well as Year 11 vocabulary. Drop in sessions are continuing on Tuesday lunchtimes for German with Mrs Jackson in L4 and on Thursday WEEK A lunchtimes with Mrs Wo Kai Song in L3. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Geography Year 11 are starting their final topic called Environmental Threats to our Planet. Students need to continue to complete personal study worksheets to remind them of previous topics and assist with their revision.

Revision in lessons will begin once we have finished the final topic, and your son/daughter may find it useful to have a copy of the OCR A revision guide, which can be purchased from Amazon, should you wish. It is not a necessity, as your son/daughter’s books should be the best place for the most detailed notes, but it can help to simplify some of the more complex concepts that we cover. https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Revision-Notes-

GCSEGeography/dp/1510418938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548231080&sr=81&keywords=ocr+a+gcse+geography+revision+guide

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Health & Social Care

Students need to complete coursework for part B component 1 by Monday 25th February which is to be emailed in on or before this date. Guidance sheet attached can be found here.

History Students are invited to join us on Thursday 28th March for a trip to the East End of London to partake in a Jack the Ripper Tour. Letters have been sent out with further details. Students will walk the streets where Jack and his victims met and hear tales of the crimes he committed. This should support the unit on Whitechapel which students study as part of the Crime & Punishment module.

Students should be completing weekly revision tasks from their Germany revision guide, which students were issued before Christmas. Each week they will complete a worksheet which has ten subject knowledge questions. We also encourage students to attempt the practice exam questions at the end of the booklet. Any question they attempt will be marked by their teacher. After School revision sessions have now begun. Some students have been invited to attend sessions run by Mrs Greig and Mr Alderslade. For those not invited to targeted revision the department is running general revision at the same time. Revision runs from 3:10-4pm each Tuesday. A timetable of the sessions can be found here and posters are located around the department as a reminder to students. The department is continuing to run its weekly GCSE Drop In Clinic. This runs every Friday at lunchtime. If students miss any lessons or need any extra support then they simply need to bring their book so that the teacher can help them with any missed work. If students need any additional resources or materials then they simply need to contact a member of the History Department who will try their best to accommodate their needs.

Maths Its 15 weeks until the Maths GCSE exams so time for all students to be cracking on with some serious revision.

To revise these topics they have 4 options: 1. Use their online textbooks to go back over the topic on kerboodle 2. Choose the online revision lessons and tasks on these topics on mymaths. Login: crispins, password: parallel. 3. Use the PiXL Maths APP. The school ID is CR803 and students PLC's are now live on the system. How to login can be found in the PowerPoint here. 4. Use Corbettmaths.com to search a topic, watch a video and complete exam style questions. Many Thanks

Music Listening: Students should prepare in advance for listening activities scheduled for all lessons. Helpful information on musical elements can be found online at BBC Bitesize, while skills-based content may be addressed independently using Auralia software. Students have recently received an email with various attachments for use with revision, including the ‘yellow sheets’ handed out at parents’ evening last term.

AQA-specific GCSE Music revision guides present the key information required for the listening exam (details of two possible options are given below; click on either to follow hyperlink to possible retailers for purchase and please ensure that you view ‘Revision Guide’ and not ‘Study Guide’). CGP’s ‘Complete Revision & Practice’ guide comes complete with a CD to accompany practice questions provided. Composition: Work on composition should be ongoing between lessons in Personal Study time. Students must submit their work for feedback before the half-term break. Extra time for coursework is available during lunchtimes, after school, or during Wellbeing on a week B by arrangement with Mr Wolstencroft. Sibelius software: Sibelius notation software has proven invaluable to students in enabling them to continue work on their coursework outside of school. The student version of the program is available here for a one-off purchase cost of £99.00. The school is able to provide a letter of enrolment in order to secure a significant reduction of Sibelius Ultimate (the full version, appropriate for those students considering taking A-level Music), from £499.00 to £249.00. Alternatively, it is possible to pay in monthly instalments for either version, for a single year’s subscription. Please email wolstencroftn@crispins.co.uk with queries or to request a letter of enrolment. Performance: The timetable for performances scheduled to take place on Friday, 1st March will shortly be shared with students and parents. Students must ensure that they are performance-ready by this time, and that assessment evidence is shared with teachers. Suitable choice of music must be discussed with instrumental/class teacher. Students should ensure they are well-prepared in advance of the deadline and aware of lessons that require specific equipment (instruments, sheet music including accompaniments if applicable) to be brought into school. NB students are responsible for ensuring that their performances meet with minimum duration requirements when combined with their intended ensemble performance. This is a minimum of one minute of ensemble performance and a total time requirement of 4 minutes overall.

PE Moderation date is confirmed as Wednesday 27th March Athletics event to be held on Tuesday 12th February at Palmer Park Badminton club is held after school on Tuesdays (although not on Tuesday 12th February due to the athletics). Trampolining club is held after school on Thursdays. Students are reminded to complete the work in the Personal Study booklet that has been emailed out (please click here) as directed by the teacher for that week. Currently Physical Training section.

Religious Studies

After Half Term we will begin to revise for the Islam paper. Students should bring their Year 10 book to lessons which should include their work and notes on this unit. If students do not have their Year 10 book with this work in, we recommend the following revision guide to support them with their revision of this unit : ‘My Revision notes OCR GCSE Religious Studies (9-1)’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revision-Notes-GCSE-Religious-Studies/dp/1510409769/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1536693381&sr=8-3&keywords=my+revision+notes+ocr+religious+studies

The department does have some spare revision guides and textbooks that students are welcome to borrow

Sport - BTEC

The BTEC exam is booked for March 15th 1pm. It lasts for 60 minutes. Students have been given some revision materials but the following book is very useful.

Science

Tassomai Superstars

Well done to all of our students who have made excellent progress on Tassomai recently (and a little nudge to those who have not…) Most progress through the course: James Romain 64.1% Adam Chennells 61.9% Jacob Cutler 56.7% Daniel Silvestre-Lloyd – 56.3% Alex Boxall – 50.1% Most time spent in the last 7 days Harry Woolton – 1hr 40 Jacob Cutler 1hr 37 Lauren Upex 1hr 29 Adam Chennells 1hr 22 Noah Jones 1hr 20 Most questions correct in the last 7 days Lauren Upex 324 Jacob Cutler 311 Noah Jones 282 Adam Chennells 210 Taran Chaggar 206 Most progress in the last 7 days without a mention so far! Nathan Bennett 1.7% Brendan Davies 1.6% Riley Geary 1.5% For those who have lost motivation with Tassomai and it does not seem that they will get going again, please encourage them to have a look at Seneca learning. Dr Rose

10 Mark challenge All students have been set the task to complete the 10 mark challenge to boost their grade by 10 marks and into the next grade boundary. There are some superb examples of students addressing each area on their exam, using the Exam analysis pack (QLA) and the 10 mark challenge sheet. It might be an opportunity over half term for your son/daughter to get organised with their revision program, starting with the 10 mark challenge. We still have a few students that are starting on page 1 of the revision guide, which is such a poor technique, it is the easiest content, the content that is revised the most and will have least impact. Really encourage your child to use their PLC or QLA and target weaknesses. A great example of a student’s materials for the 10 mark challenge – addressing each of the 4 target areas.