Transition
Our sites and leaders ensure that all students are fully supported throughout their transition into Sixth Form and from Year 12 into 13. We believe that transition needs to be centred on ensuring academic and pastoral success and starts from you being accepted into one of our Sixth Forms.
As such, as part of your joining a Harris Sixth Form, you will benefit from a bespoke, personalised course discussion with your future Sixth Form. Your advisor will guide you on selecting the best courses for your successful future, and on how to prepare for your step up to level 3 qualifications. As part of your transition, you will benefit from dedicated transition days or events and tailored tutor and pastoral development time across your first month, focussed on ensuring you thrive in your new Sixth Form place of study.
We are proud to be able to offer additional support in securing successful academic transitions, enabled by our strong team of central Federation qualification leaders, who operate across all our sites and bring their outstanding curriculum and disciplinary pedagogy to support the best academic journeys for all. Within this, we furnish students with comprehensive transition work packs for entry to Sixth Form and transition to the second year.
Our leaders at every site ensure that your academic progress is well communicated to you throughout your time at Sixth Form. Regular summative assessment is used to support you in moving forward across your courses of study, and formative assessment is deeply embedded in all classrooms. Those students who are not yet achieving at the level required for a successful transition into their final year are given further bespoke support to ensure that they reach their goals to progress successfully into Year 13.
Transition work
We provide transition packs for students entering Sixth Form from their GCSE studies, and to support successful progression from Year 12 to 13. These are created by our expert cross-Federation team with a focus on consolidation, building schema and appropriate preparatory work to give every student the best opportunity to have a strong start to their year.
If you’re about to join Year 12:
For those of you who are about to join a Harris Federation Sixth Form, an important element of preparing for the next stage in your studies is to prepare for the courses you are planning to take. You will be issued with some independent transition study tasks for each of your subjects. There are specific guidelines and tasks for each subject, but you should plan to spend several hours per subject on this valuable work. Of course, you don’t have to do this in one sitting; you may prefer to divide up the work and spend an hour a day preparing for your new courses. Your teachers will ask you for this week in the first full week of term in September, so you’ve got plenty of time to ensure this work is completed to the best of your ability. This will allow you to hit the ground running at the start of your new course, because you will have completed some pre-reading tasks, or done some consolidation of key material.
Year 11 into 12 Transition Work
Transition from Year 12 to Year 13:
The summer between Year 12 and Year 13 is a critical time in your Sixth Form studies; you are more than 50% of the way through your courses and about to enter a critical year in your education journey. Taking time over the summer to review the content you’ve studied so far and make revision summaries, practice some exam-style questions and do some pre-reading for Year 13 will all ensure that you’re as well prepared as possible for the year ahead. You may also have NEA (Non-Examined Assessment) work or coursework to complete too. Your teachers will issue you with some independent transition study tasks for each of your subjects, which they will expect you to have completed by the first full week of term in September. It is of course up to you how you organise your time, but you may well decide to spend an hour a day completing this work. This is a valuable part of your studies and it is important that you plan your time effectively, so that you complete these independent tasks to the best of your ability.