Welcome to Holmer Green Senior School Sixth Form

I am delighted to welcome you as a parent of the Sixth Form at Holmer Green Senior School. The purpose of this leaflet and the information given during this evening is to reassure you about the importance of your role in your son’s/daughter’s education and to give you key information about how we support students to help them achieve their best.

Our commitment is to ’student-centredness’. In practice, student-centredness means that our main priority is ensuring the highest quality of learning for each individual student in an environment designed to be challenging, supportive and friendly. We also place great emphasis on keeping our students focused on study and maintaining a calm and purposeful environment for learning.

We recognise the importance of working in partnership with you to support your son/daughter; experience has shown us that parental involvement at an early stage can prove highly effective in supporting students.

Mrs R Golding, Assistant Headteacher - Sixth Form

Communication with parents

One of the main differences between Year 11 and Year 12 is that students are given more responsibility for their own learning and are treated more as adults. However, we do value regular contact with parents and apart from formal consultation opportunities, you are welcome to contact your daughter’s / son’s academic tutor at any time.

You may also want to contact:

How can you best support your son or daughter?

• Phone or email the school Attendance Office before 8:30am if they are unwell and not able to attend lessons so that teachers can be notified
• Make sure they have somewhere quiet to study at home. They will have lots of homework to do which will be detailed in Planners and on the SIMS App
• Take a copy of their timetable so you know when they should be in lessons
• Remember that we ask students to be in school for their study periods 1-4 (and 5 in Autumn 1) so please encourage them to be in by 8:50am each day
• Reinforce the importance of taking part in enrichment opportunities we offer and how it will help when they apply for work or university
• As soon as you are concerned about any aspect of their learning life in the Sixth Form call or email their tutor or subject teacher
• Encourage them to be well-organised; they should come to school each day with pens, paper, an A4 folder, their Planner and any other specialist equipment
• Ensure that part-time work is not prioritised above study and doesn’t exceed ten hours per week
• Encourage them to understand that every aspect of their timetable is important and should be attended unless they are unwell
• Ensure that holidays are not taken during term time

Independent Study

We do expect all students to devote a lot of their time outside of lessons to independent study. On average, for each subject your son/daughter is studying they will be expected to do an additional five hours of their own work. Some of this should be completed during study periods and the rest at home.

While we understand the importance and benefit of part-time work, research and experience have shown that if students are to achieve to the best of their ability they should not work for more than 10 hours a week.

The school website, www.hgss.co.uk gives parents information and contact details which may help with issues such as health and wellbeing, self-harm, sexuality, e-safety, safe-guarding and eating disorders. Students have also been provided with a wide variety of contact details in their Planner, should they need them

Key Dates 2024 - 2025

Rachel Golding

Assistant Head Teacher - Sixth Form