Sixth Form Summer Tasks
Your teachers have set you tasks to complete over the summer, in preparation for the start of September. These are compulsory and very important for you to complete, so that you are ready and prepared for your A Levels. Some subjects will be holding assessments within the first few weeks of September, based on this work.
Sixth Form Home Study
Sixth Form students should expect to be spending at least four hours on homework per subject per week. Most of this time will be spent on work to be handed in and assessed by teachers.
In most subjects, students are also expected to spend a considerable amount of time on independent research and wider reading. It should rarely be the case that they have “done everything”.
If you would like to do more in order to maximise your chances of succeeding in school (and life as these tips will help you learn anything), you should apply the following advice to learning the work you have done in your lessons. Use your books and any other supporting resources you might have access to at home to do the following:
Regular testing is the most effective way to learn something. It is actually retrieval practice as you are training your memory how to retrieve information.
Re-reading and highlighting remain the most common study practices but on their own are very ineffective. Consider written notes and visual organisers and always create flash cards to help with testing.
Space out tests rather than cramming in repeated re-readings of a textbook in one long session.
Interleave different topics, returning to them from time to time instead of dealing with them in blocks and moving on.
Students should generate their own answers with essays or a few sentences, rather than using multiple choice tests.
Vary the conditions of practice to prevent learning becoming rote and tied to one context.
Change the test format or the room you study in, often.
Year 12
Minimum expectation is 4 hours a week per subject, this should include directed work as well as additional reading, research and preparation.
Year 13
Minimum expectation is 5 hours a week per subject, this should include directed work as well as additional reading, research and preparation.
Where ICT is required as part of an independent study task, students may use an ICT room or the Discovery Centre at lunch times or at home study club after school on a Tuesday or Thursday in the Inclusion Department.