Sixth Form Culture

Harris Academy Ockendon Sixth Form is a scholarly and ambitious place to be. We believe in the culture we have created and with this know:

1. We must stop the forgetting
2. Sixth formers must be deliberately taught how to become independent learners
3. We must support our students in preparing for ambitious destinations

How do we achieve this?

1. High quality teaching and learning that focusses on retrieval practice and low stakes testing that takes place every lesson
2. Deliberate tuition of revision skills through the assembly and tutor time programme
3. High quality practitioners who have degrees within the subjects they are teaching. Expert teachers build expert students
4. Revision skills are deliberately taught through the tutor time programme as well as in the delivery of assembly
5. ‘Private Study’ is timetabled to every student for three periods a week to ensure students are given structured silent revision periods where Year 13 students will consolidate their knowledge across Year 1 content and Year 12 will practice the skills they have been learning in assembly to secure their knowledge across Year 1
6. ’30-day-plans’ are created by teachers in the build up to form examinations whereby the sequencing of revision is explicitly considered by teachers so that students can revise a manageable chunk every day, with revision activities and recall of core knowledge every day.

Supporting Our Students

How Do We Support Students In Time Management?

We believe that Sixth Form students should be becoming independent learners and we want to support students with the development of these scholarly skills. With this in mind a Sixth Former will have

1. One period of enrichment per week
2. Three private study periods per week
3. Five lessons per subject per week
4. One assembly starting at 8:20am per week
5. Two tutor times starting at 8:20am per week
6. Six periods of non-contact time per week
7. The school day ends at 3:30pm in order to allow students optimal time to complete independent study within or outside of school