Dear Year 11 students,

Having now had just over a week without attending College I am sure, like all of your teachers, you are still adjusting to the new way of living.  

You all dealt so well with the news that your exams had been cancelled and you were a pleasure to have in the College during those last two days. Your teachers also really appreciated the many positive things you said about them and the college. Thank you for doing that.

We have not sent you anything more about your exams as there has recently been nothing new released from the Government.  On the 20th March they said that they intend to get grades to you all by the end of July.  They are proposing that the exam boards will be asking teachers to use a range of evidence to produce a grade that they believe the student would have received if exams had gone ahead.  Just in case teachers have to produce evidence for their judgements, please could you keep your work and mock exam papers safe. Some staff in preparation for the close -down gave students a lot of their work while others didn’t. If you still have work in College please don’t worry it will be kept safe.

This predicted grade, alongside any prior attainment data such as Key Stage 2 levels, will then be used to by the exam boards to produce a final grade.  The Government have also said that if students are unhappy with the grade they are given there will be opportunities to appeal and possibly resit exams, so again please do not discard revision notes, just in case you want to use them again.  

The link to the Government proposals is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/further-details-on-exams-and-grades-announced. At the moment the Government is still consulting about this process with only very limited information about vocational qualifications and so once we have further details, we will contact you.

For now, we need you to start thinking about how to keep your education moving so that you can get a head start on your new courses in September.  For many of you, your new course will lead directly on from a GCSE and that course will presume that you have learnt all the background at GCSE.  So firstly, I would advise that you continue to ensure you are fully prepared for September by reviewing your GCSE work using your blue book. Many of you were close to finishing the course content but it would be good to finish this off wherever possible. For those of you starting courses unrelated to your GCSE subjects you will still need to be ready to study in September so it will be useful to you to continue some work to keep your study habits healthy. 

To help you do this your teachers will, during and after the Easter holidays send you some pre-learning activities, catchily titled Pre-Post 16 (PPS) activities, alongside advice by subject leaders for next year to give you that head start. Please give them your best efforts. Furthermore, our College website has details of the Post-16 courses and the respective boards so that students can download the specification for themselves to start working on particular areas. In addition, you can be reading around your subject to get a broader and deeper base of knowledge which, for those that commit to it, can be vital in the final examinations and university interviews.

In terms of entry into Post-16 we would like to assure everyone that we will do our utmost to ensure that students are not disadvantaged by the cancelling of the exams. Our staff are very experienced at making realistic forecasts and so we will proceed to offering places based on those predictions in May and June. Once the Government’s calculated final grades are released, we will look very closely at how they compare with our own thoughts. While bearing in mind we must not set students up to fail on courses that are too difficult for them at this stage, we will, as we always do every year, look closely at the circumstances of each individual and give them an opportunity to prove themselves, even if that is initially for a trial period with some key targets. As a safety net we also offer a bridging course which a student could, if unable to meet the course demands, fall back into for a year to then prepare them for the jump to Level 3 courses. 

You will always be Exmouth students and we will always do our best for you.

I hope this clarifies the current position for you as well as:

• emphasising the importance of trying to finish off your GCSE content
• keeping any evidence such as essays, exercise books, tests
• keeping revision notes just in case you wish to re-sit in the future
• starting to read around your new subjects starting in September
• watching out for Pre-Post Sixteen tasks from your staff and doing your best on them
• looking at our website to find the relevant exam boards at Post-16 to start working through any key areas
• reassuring you that we will do everything we can to get you on the best Post-16 course possible for you while being careful to not set you up to fail

If you have any queries following this letter, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at the College via our website. We will be happy to help.

Yours sincerely,

        Simon Tanner                                       Henri Miles                               Andrew Davis

Assistant Principal Post-16                     Assistant Principal KS4                              Principal