Faculties

Information on the opportunities for high attaining students in each Faculty area can be found here.

Mathematics

UKMT maths challenges are used at both Senior level (Years 11,12,13) and Intermediate level (Years 10 and 11)
GCSE Further Maths qualification
UK Maths Olympiad for girls, Years 11,12,13
Teaching provision for students who wish to sit the STEP paper for Higher Level University Entries
Cambridge trip to St. John’s College Cambridge and Maths Inspiration Lectures

Creative Writing Club: the writing club offers students the chance to develop their writing skills outside of the classroom. This held in B11 on a Thursday after school.
Teaching and Learning on agenda: Teaching and learning is discussed at every faculty meeting. Differentiating activities to challenge and nurture learners at both ends of the spectrum are always considered.
Prefecting: KS5 students have been supporting KS4 groups during lessons.
In-class extension activities
Theatre trips for Key Stage 4 – ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and Key Stage 5 – ‘Macbeth’.
Public speaking competition involving KS4 and KS5 high achievers.
Choice of texts for Literature high ability sets – texts have been chosen to push the most able classes.

Mixed pairs (weak and more able) ‘teaching’ others, peer mentoring, prefecting, direct most challenging questions at them, extension or alternative tasks, ‘expert’ in group to assist others, give time to individual questioning/discussion whilst rest of the class still working, questioning – be selective with answers – higher level questioning, check personal statement when applying for biological courses, mock interviews for University, Birmingham University visit, A level content for GCSE students, encourage reading around the subject, more application questions/starters, explaining ideas to the rest of the group, deductive reasoning questions eg if this does this – what does this do?, work it out, set own questions, extended open questions, give more detailed explanations/theory than needed (although not needed for the exam).
We also have the following trips for our students:
Residential trip for our Year 12 Biology students
Residential trip for our Year 10 Physics students called Extreme Physics.
Chemistry Day Trip for our Triple Year 10 students to NEC called Big Bang Fair.
Visiting speakers such as Prof. Newman, Dr North etc. Supporting higher attaining students in primary schools through the annual primary school science fair.

Strategy 1 – A-A* Booster sessions after school. Invitation only. How to access the A*-A Grade examination criteria.
Strategy 2 – One on One support in free periods, weekly the students bring along a 15 mark question, then they get it marked there and then. At home they then type it up to make it a ‘model answer’ and then the following week return with their model answer for final checking and a new question on a different topic.
Strategy 3 – Geography bookshelf in the library to encourage background reading for the Unit 4 report, with University level textbooks available.

Strategy 1 – Essay writing skills embedded within the class, to deepen students synopticity.
Strategy 2 – Drop in sessions on Mondays after school 3-15-4-15pm -Room A8 for the HA Students, where staff will be on hand to support with accessing the Level 3 / 4 higher level examination criteria.

Strategy 1 – Staff reserve higher order questioning for HA students (eg. During starter and plenary exercises)
Strategy 2 – We emphasise the prioritising of and linking between factors, which is important to access the higher levels of the mark scheme and is important when P.E.ELing (Point / Evidence / Explain)

Strategy 1 – Giving a list of books/websites: Peter Vardy- Puzzle of Ethics, Peter Vardy- Ethics Matters, Peter Singer- A Companion to Ethics, Peter Singer- Practical Ethics, Peter Baron- https://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/ and www.RSrevision.com
Strategy 2 – Giving them specific leadership roles in group tasks
Strategy 3 – Expecting further evaluation and analysis of evaluation points
Strategy 4 – Targeted questioning using Blooms.
Strategy 5 – HA Bookcase in A21, for use during lessons to stretch the more able and encourage reading around the subject.

Humanities departments also have a strong Twitter presence to aid students with queries outside of the normal classroom setting.

In both Year 10 and 11, there are booster classes after school to help stretch the HA students.

Year 10 HA students go to a Key note conference where the students receive information on how to improve their French and achieve the higher grades.
We use the French language assistant to speak with the Year 11s and Sixth Formers to help develop their language skills.
There are grammar lessons available after school for Sixth Form language students.
We organise trips abroad, for example, the Cologne & Bruges trip, the trip to Strasbourg, the German Exchange
We run masterclasses after school for the HA students in the high schools. This helps to prepare them for when they come up to Ashby.
University taster opportunities
Individual class teachers prepare extension booklets to help stretch the HA students
We have a shared resource area on the school intranet to which students have access to for supplementary work.
French/German literature available both in Faculty and in the library.
One-to-one sessions with a teacher are available every Day 6 for students who wish to focus on a chosen topic / grammar point in French.

Trips – we have invited a selection of G&T Year 11 on school trips with the Sixth Form.
Workshops – G&T students were invited to work with a professional artist last year to stretch and challenge their abilities.
The Arts faculty has many extra-curricular clubs which encourage G&T to widen their school experiences eg. drama productions, music clubs (orchestra, vocal, samba, wind band)
Students take leadership roles within extra-curricular activities and prefect within lower school lessons.
Invite/encourage Sixth Form into main school lessons to coach and produce work. This allows G&T to chat to Sixth Form about their work and see the possibilities of further study.
HA students are given the opportunities to work on more complex software used by the Arts industry.

In the theoretical side of the examination, courses provide extension material which they will be able to access from home.
In the practical side of both exam PE and mainstream PE, encourage students to join local clubs (this fits with one of our targets of improving school-club links).
For all HA PE students, we try get an external speaker to talk to students about the various options available to them in terms of further education in sport.
Leadership opportunities are provided for our HA students (Sky Sport Living for Sport and Young Ambassadors programmes).
VLE (Realsmart) used to challenge KS4 Examination PE students.
Taster sessions offered in conjunction with HE providers, with regards to where they can go next with their sport.
Analytical questioning provided within class to stretch and challenge.
Peer teaching used to develop both practical and theoretical subject knowledge.
KS5 prefecting in KS4 classes.