Latin

GCSE Reforms House Life

IN LESSONS: Ask your teacher to come back to the house to see Matron—if necessary she will arrange for you to see a nurse.

DURING THE NIGHT TIME: Knock on the Houseparent or resident tutor’s door… long enough to wake someone up!

Your parents will be contacted if you are ill and have to be confined to House for a number of days or need to spend time convalescing at home.

Matrons can usually take you to medical appointments outside school if your parents are unable to.

DENTAL APPOINTMENTS: These should be made during the school holidays whenever possible. Emergency and orthodontic treatment can be arranged via Matron.

• All GCSE subjects are now graded and assessed using the new 9-1 structure; • 9 is the highest grade, awarded to the very best candidates in the subject. The official definition of a grade-9 candidate is that they will be ‘in the top 20% of those achieving grades 7-9 in the subject’; • In every subject, the content is more demanding and the assessment more rigorous than previously; • The assessment will be mainly by exam. In some subjects such as Drama and Art, other types of assessment will be used only where they are needed to test essential skills. For further information about assessment, please speak to the relevant Head of Department. Tiering of exams The new GCSEs are only split into foundation tier and higher tier if one single exam paper does not give all students the opportunity to show their knowledge and abilities. Consequently, exams are tiered in Biology, Chemistry, French, German, Maths, Physics and Spanish.

MINIBUS (Link with train station)

New grading structure

Current grading structure

9 A* 8 7 A 6 B 5 4 C 3 D 2 E F 1 G U U

9 is awarded to those pupils achieving what would currently be a top A*: perhaps at around 96%+

GOOD PASS (DfE) 5 and above = top of C and above Schools are no longer AWARDING assessed on A*-C 4 and above = bottom of C and above statistics, but on ‘9-4’ statistics.

A minibus is available to take pupils to Hook Station on Saturdays at 12.00pm or at 4.30pm on Fridays on exeat or half term weekends. A minibus also picks up from Hook Station at 7.25pm on Sunday evenings. Under the updated If you wish to use this service you need to sign up on the booking sheet in Reception by Friday lunchtime, or by Thursday lunchtime for an exeat/half term weekends. structure, the ‘good pass’ for Maths and This service is also available at the start and end of each term. English is a 5, which is on the border between a C and a B under the MONEY AND HOUSE BANK old system. We are cashless. Any money for tuck or events can be added to the school bill or money can be transferred to the House account. Please ask your Houseparent for the House Bank details.