GCSE Revision Course

Teachers and staff from The City of London Freemen’s School welcomed nine teachers and 46 students from the three City of London Corporation academies (Hackney; Islington; Southwark) to a residential GCSE revision course at Freemen’s over the Easter Holiday.

Aims

The course was designed for students on target for higher grades, in light of the government’s Progress 8 / Attainment 8 guidance. 

Immediate beneficiaries are the year 11 students at our three partner academies in The City of London Corporation MAT.

Background

The City of London Corporation has three independent and three maintained MAT academies which it supports. As Freemen’s is the only school in the #cityfamily with boarding provision, it was the perfect venue to facilitate a three-day, intensive, residential programme focussing on Maths and English, with supplementary extra-curricular and pastoral sessions, including: softball; basketball; vegan cooking; mindful colouring; quizzes; debating; squash; student budgeting; football; a scavenger hunt; construction, board and card games.

Not only was the course an opportunity for students from the city schools to connect, but it was also an introduction to living away from home in a new environment with students of a similar ability, offering a taste of what university life might be like.

Resources

Students stayed in Freemen's boarding accommodation.

The project was jointly funded by Freemen’s and the Corporation's Education budget, with pupils paying a small contribution where feasible.

Teaching staff were drawn from all four schools involved.

Impact

Afterwards, students remarked on the success of the project, enjoying: meeting new people, making new friends; team work; getting extra help; the different environment, getting out of London into Surrey; classes with similar students; trying out new activities; the boarding experience; learning from different teachers.

“The food was very nice, the students were really friendly and so were the teachers. Extremely enjoyable experience, would like it to last longer!”
 

Pupil Involvement

Students were mixed gender, year 11. Staff from all three academies and the independent partner, City of London Freemen's, hosted and taught on the course.

Frequency

The event was the first of its kind, which we are looking into replicating in the future and maybe even growing it to accommodate more subjects.