Sixth Form Tutoring & Advice
Tutoring & Advice
A specialist team of staff, which includes the Headmaster, takes on tutorial responsibility and Clayesmore has developed a distinctive Sixth Form tutorial and assessment system. Existing Clayesmore students are able to choose their tutor and we allocate new students to a tutor who might suit you best. Students meet with their tutors at least twice every week. The process incorporates self-assessment, and sees students negotiating their own academic targets. The whole emphasis is on them developing more and more responsibility for their own learning. Altogether, students discover a new relationship with the staff and thrive in the more adult approach. Those who require it are still perfectly able to benefit from help and extra teaching in the Learning Support Centre.
A topic of crucial importance almost as soon as Sixth Form courses are underway is what to do next! There are university courses for students of every ability and in every area of interest and it is probably true to say that any serious-minded student wishing to go to university these days is able to do so, though A-level qualifications will obviously be radically different from university to university and from course to course.
The whole subject of university applications and all that must be taken into account in making them must be faced up to during the Lower Sixth. Visits are made to local universities such as those at Bath and Exeter by the whole Lower Sixth year group. A great deal of research is needed by students to make sure that the courses they choose really are the ones they want to pursue and that all the fine details in terms of course content are thoroughly gone into quite apart from the need to make sure they are happy with the location of the universities they are interested in most.
With more higher education courses and different types of degree to choose from than ever, it is important that experts are on hand to give advice and guidance. The Head of Sixth Form and the Head of Careers are highly experienced in all matters to do with Higher Education and they work together with personal tutors to provide a first class service to our students. In addition to this, in May or June each year, the school puts on a presentation to students and their parents with the help of an Admissions Tutor from one of the popular universities to make sure that parents are briefed on the whole process. It isn’t the same as it was in our day! All university applications are made electronically using UCAS – a central application system. All applications and references are personally approved by the Head of Sixth Form and the Headmaster.
Advice about the future is not, by any means, limited purely to universities. Full careers advice is available through the school’s own staff team and also through the excellent Independent Schools’ Careers Service (ISCO) and their highly experienced regional directors. Recruitment officers from the Royal Navy, British Army, and the Royal Air Force visit the school regularly and pupils and students who are interested in a career in HM Forces will meet them as soon as that interest is made known. Outside agencies play their part in equipping Clayesmore students for the future too and specific interview skills days are held each year.
All in all, tutoring, advice and guidance is tip-top at Clayesmore and students and parents can be sure that they will be appropriately advised and guided about future plans.