Posted on February 3, 2021

Message for the parents of Year 13 students

Dear Parent/Guardian*

Barnsley Sixth Form College Parents’ Progress Event

Your son/daughter will receive their report in the post. The report is a reflection of how well your son/daughter is progressing in year 13 of their A level studies. We still have a long way to go and time to maintain or improve performance.

The monitoring grade will take into account work completed, assessments, homework submission and contribution to class. The effort score is the students overall approach to their studies in that subject.

All year 13 students are supported and encouraged to take responsibility for their learning, and should be undertaking a minimum of 5 hours of study per subject per week. Research shows that the more learners do in addition to work set by teachers the better learners will perform in the exams.

We would like the opportunity to discuss how we can work together to ensure your son/daughter are successful. I would therefore like to invite you to a Parents’ Progress Event taking place between Monday 22 and 26 February.

As done previously this will take place remotely and your son/daughter can organise a time/day during the week to call you over Teams. This will give you an opportunity to speak to subject teachers. The appointment times are 5 minutes in duration, it is really important to stick to this time frame.

I am sure that many of you may want to talk to teachers about the OFQUAL consultation and grading in the summer. Whilst I fully understand this, teachers may not have this information at that point.

The conversation needs to be about how they are performing pre lockdown, how they have performed so far during the closure and what they need to do in order to improve. Discussions around centre assessed grading will need to wait until the outcome of the consultation and subsequent publication of guidance for schools and colleges. At which point I will write to you and outline what this will mean for your son/daughter.

If your son/daughter has any difficulty arranging appointments or receiving their progress reports please email SixthFormAdmin@barnsley.ac.uk and they will assist.

Yours faithfully

Denise Jelly

Principal

*Parent includes named carers and guardian; son/daughter includes young people in your care