Wednesday saw Year 11 students and their parents flowing into the Main Hall to hear about the choices that lie ahead for them Post-16 at Boroughbridge High School. Mrs Town, Head of Sixth Form, started with an introduction in the Hall before everyone moved across to the Sixth Form Centre to visit the Study Room and Common Room and talk to teachers and students about which subjects they would like to take. We’re excited to be moving into our second year of

Post-16 partnership with King James’s School, Knaresborough which enables us to provide a wider curriculum offer for our students and we were delighted to welcome Mr O’Hara, Head of Sixth Form at King James’s School, to answer questions about the subjects that are taught there. If you weren’t able to attend and would like a prospectus please e-mail schooladmin@boroughbridgehigh.com or view the online version which can be found here http://www.boroughbridgehigh.com/post-16/

Students can look forward to lessons similar to those experienced by our Sixth Form students this week. This has included Year 13 Biologists studying peas! Well, to be a little more precise, they were exploring the laws of Mendelian inheritance established following Mendel’s pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863. Over in Physics, students were looking at the components of an AC generator, creating annotated diagrams.

Year 13 Historians were refining their exam technique by deconstructing and planning answers for exam questions on topics they studied more than a year ago: Politics, Society and Foreign Policy. They have a Study day at York University to look forward to next week where, along with enhancing their coursework research, they’ll be experiencing their proposed future life at University!

Complex issues are at the fore for Religious Studies students who, having just finished work on how various moral philosophies apply to the issues of environmental care and animal welfare, will begin to grapple with the conditions which make warfare just and legal. Meanwhile, for the other part of their course, they’ll be looking at the problem of evil and whether it is possible to reconcile the idea of an all loving and all powerful God in a world with so much evil.

Year 12 Geographers have been mentally travelling to Los Angeles and The Philippines to construct their case studies of multi-hazard environments whilst also developing their skill in answering the not insubstantial 20 mark exam questions. Meanwhile, Year 13 Geographers are completing their Individual Studies, based on a topic of their choice which they’ve researched independently, which makes up 20% of their A Level. They’ve just finished units on water and carbon cycles in the tropical rainforest and developed London as a Case Study.

In Maths, students have been looking at modelling statistical distributions using the normal distribution whilst Photography students, following weeks of focused work, have been putting together their final pieces. The effectiveness of drug therapies in the treatment of schizophrenia has been examined by Year 13 Psychologists.

During this week, seven Year 12 students have travelled across to Knaresborough to study Business, Biology, Chemistry, ICT, Media Studies and Politics at King James’s School.

Alongside their A-Levels, students are encouraged to take on an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) or CeFS (Financial Studies) qualification where, this week, students have been looking at long term savings and investments including stocks, shares, property, pensions and life assurance.

Mr Grierson has been discussing ‘Fake News’ in assemblies this week, challenging students to apply critical thinking to information that they relentlessly receive through social media. His advice is always to consider the key questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

So, in the summer, when A-Level exam results are published and there’s a suggestion that A- Levels are becoming less rigorous, I’ll let you decide whether it’s ‘Fake News’. Have a lovely weekend.