Monitoring & Mentoring

We understand that staying on track is often a big challenge for Sixth Formers, they are of an age where there are many distractions from paid work, a developing social life, peer pressure, as well as pressure from school and family to perform at a high level. At BMS we understand that at certain times students need additional support, guidance and direction to help get them back on track. We therefore have a series of techniques to help students in the Sixth Form achieve their best.

The Data

Target Grades - Each student has a minimum target grade to aim for based upon our experience of performance of students with a similar GCSE profile but also based upon independent research from Durham University. Tracking - Each department monitors student performance against these target grades and generates a half termly snapshot of your son/daughter's progress. Heads of department monitor progress based upon their expereience of how similar pupils have performed in the past as well as considering the potential of your son/daughter.

The People

Data is of course meaningless in a vaccum and our pastoral team step in to help make more sense of what is happening and put the data in context.

The Team - The Director of Sixth Form, Senior Tutors and Tutors then analyse the data identifying those who are underachieving and put a vareity of support strategies in place which can include any of the following:

  Academic Mentoring with the Tutor or Senior Tutor
  Additional support from the department/teacher
  Individual Learning Plan corodinated support between departments and the Sixth Form Learning Mentors.
 

The Learning Mentors

Our Learning Mentors are a unique feature of our Sixth Form, they help and support students at all levels from guiding and supporting students through the UCAS process to providing personalised one to one learning support. Typical mentoring sessions might help students to identify problems, reflect on how they can improve their performance or identfy different study skills or learning styles that might help the student.