Dear Family

We would like to take this opportunity to start this important year on a high and we hope your child is excited and prepared as they start Year 11 with us at Selston High School.

We are writing to inform you about our Year 11 support opportunities that we have carefully planned and set up for our Year 11 students. We are proud to say that we have a whole host of excellent academic support on offer for our students to help prepare and support them through this vital year in their education journey.

Our first strand is the launch of our new bespoke, Year 11 Knowledge Companions, which you have had a separate launch letter about yesterday. These will be given out to students on Friday in assembly, each student will be given a personalized Knowledge Companion, which contains the 100% sheets for each subject they study. We will work through how best to use this amazing resource during mastery sessions with Mrs Heald and with tutors. These sessions will focus on developing the key skills students need to ensure they know how to revise effectively and prepare for their trial exams, as well as their final GCSE exams. On page 5 of the Companion there is an explanation of what 100% sheets are and on page 6 is an overview of the strategies that support revision using the 100% sheets. The introduction video can be found on our school website https://www.selston.ttct.co.uk/curriculum/revision/year-11-study-support/. We are sure you will agree these are an excellent resource, and we hope our students maximize their impact. In order to do so they will need to bring these to school every day. Also, within the companion, at the back is a Prom Passport (please see contents page for specific page – as these are bespoke, they are different for each student).

In order to earn their prom, invite, this year, students will need to either:

• Have 97% attendance, 97% positive ratio on class charts and have zero suspensions.
OR
• Receive 200 prom stamps before the prom date.

Stamps will be awarded for attendance, with bonus stamps for 100% attendance, 100% positive behavior, attendance at after school intervention sessions, improvements in mock grades, plus there are bonus opportunities to receive stamps for engagement in in school interventions, completing excellent work in lessons or producing independent revision materials. Basically – anything that will help them be successful!

Students were introduced to this at the end of last academic year, and we hope that it will encourage and enable all of our learners to be successful in Year 11, as well as gaining the opportunity to celebrate at our end of Year 11 Prom (more information on this will be shared in January 2026). As students will bring their Companion home each day, you will be able to check their progress and see how fantastic they have been each day too! There is a short information video on our school website which can be found HERE.

The second support strand is our offer of after-school intervention sessions. These will take place, starting at 3pm and finishing at 4pm in the rooms indicated. Each will be run by subject experts and all students are welcome to attend. If your child’s class teacher has identified them as someone who should definitely be attending this additional support, an invite letter will be sent home soon.

Our third strand is our targeted interventions for different subjects during afternoon tutor time. Initially these sessions will focus on Maths and English, there are sessions on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon tutor times. Our wonderful Heads of Department, Miss Avery and Mr Pullen, are putting on “mini lessons” for selected students to support their progress from the end of Year 10 assessments to the next set of mock exams. These will start on Tuesday next this week. We also have some groups of students who we will invite to attend an additional lesson of Maths or English during the school day (in Core PE or RE lesson time). If your child is invited to take part, then you will receive an invite letter later this week. As you will appreciate, spaces in these intervention sessions are limited and based on data we have collected from the end of Year 10 mock exams, as well as in discussion with their class teachers, and so these are an opportunity to be taken advantage of and places will be reviewed each term.

Students will be made aware of all of the above information during Ready to learn and tutor time this week and should have interventions already timetabled if they are part of our first cohort. Please note that just because your child has been selected to be part of an intervention it does not mean that they a behind. We know that with additional support some students will be able to make even more progress in their Core subjects.

Finally, we would like you to save the date for Thursday 25th September. We will be hosting a follow up evening for families on the new Knowledge Companions as well as revision and study skills to help prepare students for their mocks and final exams. Further information on this event, and mock exams, will be shared nearer the time.

For information, the first set of mocks will start during week commencing 13th October and 3rd November (half term is in between), with a parents’ evening on Thursday 11th December – please save the date. The second set of mocks will take place over the fortnight commencing 2nd February.

We hope that your child makes the most of these many opportunities and knows that we will do everything we can to support them through this important, final year at Selston High School.

It must also be mentioned that whilst we have a host of academic support on offer, we will also continue to support your child pastorally. If they have any concerns or worries, they must speak to their tutor or trusted adult, and we will act and support accordingly. Year 11 can be a stressful time for some students, however, there will be plenty of advice and care offered every day in order to minimize this. We know that this year’s year 11 have great potential to do well not only academically, but will also leave our school as kind, respectful and honest young people, who will go on to make a great contribution to the world we share.

We look forward to working alongside you in this, your child’s final year at Selston High School.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries, questions or concerns.
Kind Regards,

Gemma Heald

Rachel Andrews