South Hunsley Sixth Form Newsletter Winter 2011

Newsletter

South HunsleySixth Form College

An Academy of Excellence

Welcome to the first Sixth Form College newsletter of this academic year and to those of you reading this online welcome to our first

digital edition! We are incredibly proud of the achievements of our A Level students in

Summer 2011. We believe this has made us the top Sixth Form College in Hull and East Riding for high performance. We hope that you will agree from the results, compared to our closest sixth form providers, our students certainly stand out from the crowd.

59% of South Hunsley students achieved A*, A and B gradesWith nearly two thirds of all our A Level grades being awarded A*, A or

B we are confident we are the best provider for top grades in Hull and East Riding. All our nearest post 16 providers came in below this with Wyke College achieving 42%, the Haltemprice Consortium 41% and the Beverley Joint Sixth Form College 50%.

31% of South Hunsley students achieved A* and A gradesNearly a third of all our grades were A* and A and that is why we have a

significant uptake at high tariff universities.

100% pass rate means all South Hunsley students passed all their A LevelsWhile high achievement is always our goal, we appreciate that our

students have differing abilities and ambitions and we are delighted every single one of our students passed all their A Level courses in Summer 2011.

Inside:University SuccessSouth Hunsley students use their results to gain entry to some of the most prestigious universities in the country.

Beth GrayBeth plans to spend a gap year volunteering with children in Cambodia.

Jacob OakesJake has recently spoken at a Cyberspace Conference in London on behalf of the National Children’s Deaf Society (NCDF).

Maddie SwiftMaddie has achieved success in the annual Haltemprice Art Exhibition

At South Hunsley we like to celebrate our students’ achievements, whether

they’re academic, sporting or otherwise. Olivia Pougher certainly has an unusual

achievement. Her YouTube channel (under the name “olivia94tennis”) currently has well over 1,600 followers, and more than 430,000 views on her videos. To put that in perspective, the latest X-Factor video has just over 100,000 views.

On her videos, Olivia plays guitar

covers of famous rock songs, including complicated pieces by Muse and McFly. Tom Fletcher of the band McFly even commented on one of her videos, saying “‘This has justified my whole career. If we inspire one person to pick up an instrument then job done” This has led to Olivia’s covers being played on Viking FM, and to her meeting McFly at the Hull Freedom Festival last year. More recently, two of her covers have been featured on the NME website.

Olivia Pougher meets McFly at Hull Freedom Festival

YouTube Sensation

On finishing

their A-Levels, most students tend to progress either straight to university or perhaps into a new career.

Some take a year out to travel, or perhaps to get

some work experience before deciding on a career or university course.

Beth Gray is a little different. She plans on studying medicine at university following her gap year, which she plans to spend volunteering with children in Cambodia.

She’ll be working for Project Trust, based on the Isle of Coll off the Scottish Coast. Unlike many gap year organisations, Project Trust is extremely selective in the choice of its volunteers, sending only a handful of individuals every year. Beth will be matched carefully to a project to suit her skills and abilities and will spend her time in Cambodia as a valued member of the community rather than a traveller or tourist.

She’ll be working mainly with children, teaching some elementary English and being involved in the general health and welfare of the community.

Beth says “For me this work will be incredibly rewarding and will give me the chance to make a real difference to these young lives”. Sponsorship fundraising is an important part of Beth’s preparation. If you would like to sponsor her year volunteering please contact the South Hunsley Sixth Form on [email protected].

Volunteer Work

University SuccessAt South Hunsley Sixth Form College,

much of our time and resource goes into helping our students achieve the highest possible grades.

We want our students to be able to access the best courses at the top universities in the country and we have a strong sixth form team to deliver the highest standard subject tuition and a range of supporting activities.

With our impressive set of results, it was no surprise that many of our students successfully moved on to Higher Education with over 70% of our students getting their first choice institution. 36 of our students were accepted by Russell Group

universities, a group made up of the 20 leading universities in the country. This is a truly remarkable achievement and is reflected in the acknowledgment by the Sutton Trust that a quarter of our students are accepted at highly selective universities.

In total last year, we sent off 156 UCAS applications and we are currently in the thick of it for our current Year 13. We will certainly be hoping to emulate the impressive record of students gaining places at the most prestigious universities again this year and we already have students successfully invited to interview for Oxbridge and courses such as Medicine.

You might remember Jake Oakes from previous issues of South Hunsley News when we were proud to announce that he was training

with the English Deaf Cricket Squad. Recently he was invited to London to speak at a Cyberspace Conference on

behalf of the National Children’s Deaf Society (NCDF). The conference, which featured Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign

Secretary William Hague was on the impact that the internet and cyberspace has on different areas of society. Jake spoke in front of over 600 delegates about ways of making the internet more accessible for deaf people, including subtitles on videos and the use of British Sign Language (BSL) translators.

Cyberspace Conference

Following on from Alex Cawkwell’s success last year, another of our art students has done extremely well in the Haltemprice Art Exhibition. Maddie Swift received third prize in the competition. The prize was

presented by the Chairman of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Kay West.

Haltemprice Exhibition

Our resident star show jumper Ollie Dales has been at it again. She has been selected by Sport England for a BEF Excel Talent

Squad. This is a prestigious opportunity – only 12 representatives from each equestrian discipline are chosen. The talent squad offers Olympic style training in preparation for a potential Olympic team place. Ollie is optimistic that we may be seeing her competing in the 2020 games.

Not that Ollie is any stranger to fame – she recently appeared on Channel 5 when her boyfriend was evicted from the Big Brother house. She informs us that she fully intends to work her way up the channels to the Olympic coverage on the BBC in a few years.

Ollie Dales

We hope this newsletter has given you a flavour of the success of South Hunsley Sixth Form College.

September 2011 has seen yet another rise in the number of students joining us in Year 12, with the college remaining the destination of choice for the majority of our Year 11 students. They have also been joined this year by an increasing number of students from other schools, who have also recognised the success and achievement of our Sixth Form. The new Year 12 students have made an impressive start to the year and are making the most of all of the opportunities the college has to offer.

If you have any queries about joining South Hunsley Sixth Form College please contact the Sixth Form team on (01482) 631208 ext 214 or email [email protected]

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