PROFILING AND PROGRESS FILES

Care is taken to guide students towards courses that will be most beneficial to them and as a consequence students have a high success rate on all courses. The Pre-Sixth Induction course held in July of Year 11 is designed to give guidance to students on making transition from GCSE. Elements include the organisation of time, research skills, study skills and other elements aimed at encouraging students to become independent learners. Students are given clear short term and long term targets to aim for during their reviews with tutors on a termly basis.

Each student is given a personal document file at the outset, in which to keep records of residential and fieldwork, extra-curricular activities, vocational work experience and other personal data related to the individual. With permission from the student, some of this information is used when compiling references for the universities and places of post-18 employment.

It is important that students take an active part in monitoring their own progress. Our Progress File appraisal system takes place once a term, providing students with regular reviews of their strengths and weaknesses and the opportunity to set targets to highlight where improvements could be made. Each review consists of consultations, firstly with the subject teachers to discuss and set mutually agreed targets and secondly an interview with the student’s Form/Personal tutor where overall progress can be discussed in the context of future aspirations.

Formal reports are produced annually and students and tutors keep interim appraisal sheets for reference during the year.

For each academic profiling, each student is given guidelines as to how to evaluate their own progress using pre-determined headings, and members of staff complete similar profiles, simultaneously. Staff and students then compare respective assessments, and agreed targets are set. The dialogue which ensues between academic staff, students and tutors allows an honest and free exchange of views and it is an opportunity for strengths and weaknesses to be commented on and for an assessment on the degree to which the transition from GCSE to A-level has taken place. These reports, together with information from continuous assessments and personal document files, are used to compile references for post-18 venues and for a summative document which is given to each student at the end of the second year in the Sixth Form.

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