Autumn Newsletter 2017 The Blackpool Sixth Form College #BuildingFutures
Principal’s welcome Dear friends,
Welcome to our autumn newsletter 2017! Once again this year I am delighted that we are able to share with you such good news from our college community. A particular highlight of course was our examination results in August which were the best ever for the college for a third successive year. It is wonderful to see the rewards for so much endeavour and dedication by the students themselves and, of course, our teachers and support staff. Many of our students who are heading off to university or other forms of higher training are the first in their families to do so and it’s always such a pleasure to hear and see the delight shown by parents and other family members on results day morning. We are now nearly a month into the new academic year and our new intake of first year students are settling in extremely well. I met with them all at the start of the term and shared with them the successes of the cohort of students who have just left us. I know that they will be inspired by the high standards that we set and will take full advantage of the many opportunities for personal growth and development which Blackpool Sixth offers. As always, I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible in person this academic year. Best wishes, Jill Gray (Principal)
Building futures
Continuing success of Blackpool Sixth students The autumn is an exciting time for our 2016-17 Upper Sixth leavers as they start the next chapter of their lives. Once again this year our excellent examination results mean that they have been exceptionally well placed to secure their first choice destinations, whether in higher education, training or employment. Around 80% have secured places at university whilst others are taking up higher level apprenticeships and other employment with training. They leave us with our warmest congratulations and our very best wishes for their future happiness and success. We expect that, as last year, over 99% of student leavers will have progressed to higher education, training or employment 3 months after leaving college.
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Results day 2017 For a third successive year, Blackpool Sixth students and staff celebrated our best ever set of A level and BTEC Level 3 results against a backdrop of curriculum reforms and tougher qualifications. The overall pass rate rose to 99.6% and the number of students receiving the highest possible grades increased significantly once again. In A level subjects well over half of students’ grades were high grades (A*, A or B) and in BTEC over 85% of grades were distinction stars. Blackpool Sixth Principal, Jill Gray, commented, “We are delighted with this wonderful set of results which reflects the dedication and hard work of our students and staff. Results like these mean that our students will be able to progress to their chosen next step with an excellent foundation for future success. We are extremely proud of their achievements.”
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Student Awards 2017
On 21st June Blackpool Sixth celebrated the achievements of around 90 of its students at a glittering awards event. There were awards for outstanding success in all of the courses as well as special awards for contributions to the college and wider community. The theatre was packed with the award winners and their proud parents and other family members. The coveted ‘Student of the Year’ award went to Jake Brennan, a former Fleetwood High pupil, who received the award for overcoming great personal challenges in order to achieve his triple Distinction Star in IT and progress to a degree course in network engineering. The guest of honour at the evening was Doug Mcllwraith. Doug was a student at The Blackpool Sixth Form College from 1999 to 2001 studying maths, further maths, physics and computing. He then went on to read Computer Science at Cambridge University and subsequently completed an MSc and a PhD at Imperial College London where he now leads a team of 12 working on the advancement of machine learning.
X Factor breakthrough for Chloe
Blackpool Sixth music student Chloe Rose Moyle made an amazing impression on the judges at her X Factor audition. The extremely talented 17 year old from Fleetwood sailed through the audition with an emphatic ‘yes’ from each of the panel. Pop superstar, Nicole Scherzinger, was clearly blown away by Chloe’s audition, telling the youngster, ‘You’re special, you’re really special.” Chloe who studies BTEC Level 3 Music is well known to the college community as a brilliant musician and performer, having starred in many of our concerts. Chloe, a former Cardinal Allen pupil, was part of the BTEC band ‘Sixx’ who won a national competition to perform at the Pearson BTEC awards in London in July. Students and staff have their fingers crossed for Chloe, hoping she will go much further in the country’s best known TV music show.
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Taste of the Ivy League for Keiran Blackpool Sixth student Keiran Mitchell attended a summer school at Yale University this summer to experience life at an Ivy League institution. Keiran visited the States as part of the Sutton Trust’s programme to engage students from a variety of backgrounds to see the benefits of a university education. He was selected as one of the 150 ‘programme scholars’ from across the UK to join the summer school. “I’ll be applying to American universities in November and January and so I’m going over there for a week to look at universities across the east coast of America, to get a feel for their varied characters and surroundings,” explained Keiran. “There’s a big college fair in Harvard that I’ll be attending on my first day.” Keiran, a former Cardinal Allen student, is part of the college’s Excellence Programme and is studying French, modern history and English literature A levels. The wider focus on all subjects in the first year of American colleges appeals to Keiran as it gives students a wider introduction at the start of their degree. “I was urged to apply when Gemma Collins, a former Blackpool Sixth student, came into college to talk about the Sutton Trust US programme – she now goes to Harvard,” said Keiran. “I didn’t want to choose a specialist subject just yet and the four year degree really appeals because of this.”
Australian experience for science star, Ocean Blackpool Sixth science whizz Ocean Bach won a place on an elite science programme, jetting off to Sydney for the summer. Ocean, 17, entered the Ogden Trust competition for a place on the International Science School on the advice of his Physics teacher Mhairi Mitchison, writing a research proposal on using a high speed camera in a practical situation. Ocean was one of 20 shortlisted applicants who went to the University of York for a day of interviews. He was then one of only five UK students selected for the programme in Sydney, alongside 140 students from across the world. This is the second time a Blackpool Sixth student has gained a place on the prestigious meeting. Grace Carpenter won one of the five places back in 2015.
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Funding boost for Classics project bring Latin and ancient history into primary and secondary schools. The aim is to widen pupils’ understanding of both history and literature, which in turn, will help boost their communication and written skills. Peter commented, “Using Latin in lessons really helps with pupils’ understanding of modern Blackpool’s Classics for All project, bringing foreign languages such as French, Spanish ancient history to primary and secondary schools and Italian. It also gives a massive boost to across the Fylde coast, has received a funding their confidence and use of vocabulary in their boost, bringing two new primary schools on writing.” board. Pupils will be learning about a family who lived at the start of the second century AD, in Vindolanda Blackpool Gateway Academy and Westcliff (a settlement near Hadrian’s Wall). The course Primary have now joined the initiative thanks to complements the pupils key stage 2 work on extra funding from the Ancient History Club. Roman history. Such has been the success of the programme that St John’s Catholic Primary The Blackpool and Lancashire hub is coordinated School in Poulton has embedded Latin into their by history teacher, Peter Wright, and aims to curriculum.
Grade 1 for library and learning resources In September the college received the fantastic news that our library and learning resources service (FYi) had received the top grade in its recent assessment by the sector specialists, CoLRiC (Council for Learning Resources in Colleges).
CoLRiC is an independent organisation established in 1993 dedicated to enhancing and maintaining the quality of learning resources services in further education colleges, including sixth form colleges. Blackpool Sixth is amongst month. This is testament to the FYi team’s hard nearly 200 college learning resources services work and support for all students’ independent learning and research skills.” who are members of the organisation. CoLRiC accredits libraries and learning resources Further evidence of the excellent service provided in colleges, benchmarking each service against by the FYi team is that the service has also been nominated by the assessors for CoLRiC’s Best the best in the sector. Practice Award for ‘learning conversations’ Head of Learning Resources and Careers, Debbi discussions with individual students to promote Hodson commented, “We were delighted to an individualised set of learning and research receive a Grade 1 Outstanding accreditation, skills to them to help them succeed. following a rigorous assessment earlier this 5
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Route3
our new three year programme launches In September the college welcomed its first intake of students onto an innovative new programme to provide a highly supportive three year programme leading to university, higher apprenticeships or other employment. For many years the college has run a successful Level 2 (GCSE equivalent) programme with a relatively small cohort of students. Route3 is an enhancement of the former programme, building in additional elements to aid students’ progress and widen the range of study options available to them. At the heart of the course is an emphasis on successful achievement in the core subjects of English and maths. Beyond this core, students have a number of different pathways they can pursue including creative media, public services and financial services. Whichever options the students take they have the benefit of our outstanding support and guidance, helping them take the steps they need to study and career success. The course is open to students achieving the equivalent of four GCSE grade 3s (Ds), with English or maths at grade 2 minimum.
Year 10 Experience Days
In early July the college hosted over 800 Year 10 students over three days. The students from six of our partner secondary schools were here to find out more about the Blackpool Sixth student experience and take part in learning sessions in one of eight different curriculum areas. They also took part in fun team-building sessions outdoors led by our Pastoral Mentor team. The days were extremely well received by students and school staff alike. A member of staff from Hodgson Academy commented, “The students have been buzzing about the skills and new techniques they have learnt. I think it is a fantastic idea for our students to experience what it is really like ‘out there’ when school ends.”
New Student Day
Every summer the college puts on a special day to welcome its new students ahead of starting with us in the autumn term. 2017 was no exception with well over 700 prospective students joining us to sample lessons and find out about the wider opportunities on offer at Blackpool Sixth. A very popular feature of this year was a festival in the main courtyard over the lunch break with student bands playing, candyfloss and popcorn and information stands for some of our extra-curricular groups. The feedback from new students was extremely positive for the day as a whole with lots of praise for the friendliness of staff and the warmth of the welcome.
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Alumni news
We are always delighted to hear about former students and what they have been doing since leaving Blackpool Sixth. Here are some examples of recent news from our alumni network. Please contact marketing@blackpoolsixth.ac.uk if you are a former student and would like to update us on developments in your career.
Kyle Wilson
Kyle finished at Blackpool Sixth in 2015 and started working at Blackpool Sixth as a graphic design assistant in the Admissions, Liaison and Marketing team. Kyle also does design and marketing work for the Fylde Coast Teaching School Alliance. Kyle is also a singer in a gothic darkwave band, AUGER. His debut album ‘The Awakening’ was released in the UK on the 6th October 2017 by Rebco Records. The thirteen-track album will be released and distributed across europe by AUGER’s German record label, on the 2nd March 2018, where it will be made available in North America via Sony as well as digitally on Spotify and iTunes. In October 2017 they are undertaking the nine-date, nine-city UK tour, ‘The Awakening Tour’. In 2018 AUGER will embark on the European leg of the tour, performing in major cities including Munich, Berlin, Paris and Prague.
Aimee Wilkinson Aimee completed her studies at Blackpool Sixth in 2014, obtaining A levels in maths, economics, business studies and geography. Aimee now works at BAE Systems, the world-leading defence contractor, on a project management sponsored degree programme. Aimee works as part of a team helping to develop next generation applications. Prior to that she was a project controller, responsible for estimating and tracking spends for 40 engineers across 30 projects and before that, she managed Eurofighter Typhoon repair budgets for all four partner nations (UK, Germany, Spain and Italy).
New staff:
In August we welcomed some new staff members to our college: Lis Stott - Sociology teacher Connor Fenton - Maths teacher Nichole Mott - Personal Assistant to the Deputy Principal
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Jordan Robbins - Business administration apprentice Soniya Navaratnam - Finance apprentice Amy Hurst - English teacher
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Dates for your diary Key Dates Autumn Term 2017 Open Evening - 11th October Students finish for half term - 20th October College reopens - 30th October Open Evening - 7th November Christmas Showcase - 7th December Festival of Carols - 20th December Students finish for Christmas - 20th December Key Dates Spring Term 2018 College reopens - 8th January Mock Exam week - 15th January
Open Evening - 7th February Students finish for half term - 9th February College reopens - 19th February Parents’ Evening (A-K) - 21st February Parents’ Evening (L-Z) - 28th February Annual Musical - 13th - 15th March Students finish for Easter - 23rd March College reopens - 9th April
Christmas Showcase 7th December Information and tickets available at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/blackpoosixth
Festival of Carols and Readings 20th December Information and tickets available at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/blackpoosixth
Annual Musical 13th to 15th March
Information and tickets available at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/blackpoosixth