VIP Support

Year 11 can be an exciting, as well as stressful time for students, as they face their final exams and decisions about their future. The following information will outline the support available for students and families.

During the year, the Year 11 Team hosts Raising Achievement evenings for parents, carers and students. These evenings provide important information as well as extra support and the ways in which you can help your child at home. These will take place one per term and the dates will be communicated via letter and email.

There will be two Parents Evenings during the academic year, one in the autumn term and one in spring term. You will receive a letter in advance confirming the dates and format of the evening.

The Victory Intervention Programme (VIP) is for our students – the real VIPs! The Victory Intervention Programme (VIP) Team is dedicated to Raising Achievement within the academy.

The VIP Toolkit identifies the methods used for intervention across the academy at various levels. Each programme has been developed with the following thought process in mind:

1: How can we support individual students to achieve their full potential?

2: How will the need for this support be identified?

3: How will the impact of each programme be measured, reported and built upon?

The VIP Team needs to: Establish with Key Stage 4 students what academic intervention is, and how students can benefit from it personally. We must also establish the difference between academic intervention and behaviour strategies.

The VIP Team:

  • Mr Willis
    Assistant Principal and Teacher of PE
  • Mrs Cordy
    Head of PSHE
  • Ms Ellwood
    Head of Year 11 Behaviour
  • Mrs Coby
    Raising Achievement Manager
  • Miss Cork
    VIP Mentor
  • Miss Challen
    VIP Assistant

The VIP Suite is an area for all students to use to help them with their studies. The area will be open after school. The environment is a place of work, academic support, and independent study. We establish rapport with students, and as a team, work together to ensure the area is used effectively to support achievement.

It is essential that your child undertakes additional independent revision throughout Year 11. Information on revision techniques and strategies will be shared with students through their Form Time programme. Information on revision guides and revision resources for the core subjects has already been shared. If your child has not yet purchased these, or would like option subject revision guides, there will be another opportunity do so at the start of Year 11. I strongly recommend that these resources are purchased as they will support your child in preparing fully for their end of year exams.

We have also invested in GCSE Pod, which is an online revision programme through the use of videos, which is proven to improve grades with consistent use. The pods can be accessed through a variety of PC, tablet and mobile devices and downloaded for offline usage. This can be accessed at: gcsepod.com

In order to fully support our Year 11 students and give them the best possible chance of success in their exams and their future, we introduce a compulsory period 6 lesson from 3pm until 4pm Monday to Thursday. It is an expectation of the academy that all Year 11 students attend all timetabled period 6 sessions. If students have a valid reason why they cannot attend a period 6 sessions, they need to speak to Mrs Cordy or Mr Willis in the first instance. Students will then be sent to their class teacher, where they will be expected to collect the work to complete in their own time. Consequences will be issued for non-attendance to period 6 sessions if a valid reason is not given in advance. If there are any issues with transport after period 6, students need to come and discuss this with the VIP Team in the VIP room on the first floor of the main building, and we will support however we can.

Students will be given a timetable which will clearly specify where students need to go for their P6 lesson.

In November, all students will sit mock exams for all their subjects. Students will sit exams and receive grades under the same conditions and procedures as their final exams in the Summer. This will help students to familiarise themselves with exam expectations, learn how to revise and manage their time effectively and indicate the grade that they are currently working at. Students will have support and feedback to work on any areas of development ahead of their final examinations.

For information regarding the examination process and polices, please see our Examinations page.

In order to support students moving on from Year 11, there will be sessions where students will create CVs and explore interview techniques. Students will also be given the opportunity to look at and apply for courses via the Help You Choose website. This is for courses run both at Ormiston Victory Academy and externally.

For further guidance on how we support students to make decisions about their future, please see the Careers section of the website.

Positive behaviour plays a key part in order for students to be successful in their final exams. We expect all students to put in 100% effort in all lessons, attend sessions offered by staff and behave in accordance with the Ormiston Victory Academy Behaviour Policy. In Year 11 we expect to fully focus on the education of our students; therefore, we expect behaviour to be exceptional at all times. We will not allow poor behaviour to affect the learning of any student, nor do we expect to be dealing with friendship issues or issues with social networking in lesson time. We expect all students to be in all lessons, learning. With this in mind, all behaviour issues will be dealt with in a timely manner, consistently and fairly. Students will be issued with consequences if their behaviour falls below the expected level.

We encourage Parents and Carers to contact us with any questions or concerns.

For behaviour or pastoral matters, you can contact Miss Ellwood, Head of Year 11 Behaviour on [email protected] or Mrs Cordy, Head of Year 11 on [email protected]

For academic matters, you can contact Mr Willis, Assistant Principal on [email protected] or Mrs Cordy, Head of Year 11 on [email protected]