Greenhead College is thrilled to report outstanding achievements by its students in their A Levels this summer.
This year, the A-E pass rate was 99.8%, with 89.8% of grades awarded A-C and 71.8% of grades A*-B.
72 students achieved 3 or 4 A* grades when taking 3 or 4 A Levels, achieving A* in every subject. 303 students achieved 3 or 4 A* or A grades when taking 3 or 4 A Levels, achieving A* or A in every subject. 1171 Students took 3 or 4 A Levels.
Greenhead College Principal, Simon Lett, said:
“We are extremely proud of all the work and achievements of our students, especially after such a difficult and disrupted year. Our teachers have worked tirelessly to ensure students are able to progress to higher education, apprenticeships or employment, and we look forward to seeing what they will achieve in the future.”
Following the national cancellation of exams, A Levels were awarded through a process of Teacher Assessed Grades which were approved and awarded by the examination boards. The government is not publishing performance data for any schools or colleges this year due to the varying impact of the pandemic.
This year 11 A Level Biology students participated in the British Biology Olympiad, a challenging and stimulating exam that tests students beyond the A Level curriculum. Here are the results:
Jian Chan – Gold
Hale Salman, Alistair Boyd, Evelyn Surman, Harriet Ostrowski Jones – Silver
Zainab Bhamji, Grace Denton – Bronze
Mason Cameron, Lorissa Moses, Seyed Ali Beladi – Highly commended
Lily Walsh – commended
This year 11 A Level Biology students participated in the British Biology Olympiad, a challenging and stimulating exam that tests students beyond the A Level curriculum. Here are the results:
Jian Chan – Gold
Hale Salman, Alistair Boyd, Evelyn Surman, Harriet Ostrowski Jones – Silver
Zainab Bhamji, Grace Denton – Bronze
Mason Cameron, Lorissa Moses, Seyed Ali Beladi – Highly commended
A Level business students Hamzah Khalid, Hayyan Afzal , Adam Pervaz and Mohammad Ikram reached the final of the national business and accounting competition for 16-17 year olds, an excellent achievement as over 500 schools and colleges had entered .This provided an exciting experience where the students took part in team challenges, giving them an understanding of what it’s like to be an ICAEW Chartered Accountant whilst developing their key employability skills. The team showed exceptional team-working skills and a great ability to make decisions under pressure – they were the winners in the leadership round of the challenge. Many congratulations to them!
On Wednesday 7th July 5-6pm, our Student Executives will be hosting a live Q&A webinar for Year 10 and 11 students. This is your opportunity to find out more about studying at Greenhead College from a student’s perspective and have your questions answered.
If you would like to attend, please click here to sign up by no later than the end of Sunday 4th July. You will be unable to ask your questions during the live webinar as the chat facility will be turned off, so please submit your questions when you sign up.
You will be issued a link to the webinar on Monday 5th July via the email address provided when you sign up. If the email doesn’t arrive in your inbox, please check your junk mail. If it still hasn’t arrived then please contact the college at college@greenhead.ac.uk before 4pm on Wednesday 7th July.
We are delighted to announce that Greenhead College has won two national awards for its student support during lockdown.
Our Additional Learning Support Manager, Claire Berry, was announced as a winner in the ‘Covid Above and Beyond’ category at the virtual Sixth Form College Association Award ceremony held last week.
The College was also a Bronze Winner for the 2021 Lockdown Hero Award for Learner and Community Support at the Pearson National Teaching Awards.
These awards recognise the outstanding support Claire and the Additional Learning Support team, as well as the wider staff community, provides to our students.
During the lockdown, the ALS team continued to work in college to provide a safe, secure and supportive learning environment for those students still attending and virtually supported those learning from home with daily wellbeing reminders and virtual wellbeing drop-in sessions. Mentoring across all areas of SEND continued via TEAMS and, as students navigated their way around studying online, Claire’s remote study skills sessions proved very popular.
In 2020, Claire introduced the nationally recognised MoodMaster programme, a positive, hands-on approach to physical and emotional wellbeing, which is available to all students. Greenhead College is one of a small number of college’s nationally who are qualified and licenced to deliver the programme, which helps students to learn about themselves and their mental health in a secure and comfortable environment. Several MoodMaster courses were held during the academic year in a virtual setting and will continue to run as a permanent offering to our students. Student feedback has been extremely positive:
“MoodMaster has been a big help to me since starting at Greenhead. It has helped me so much in understanding how and why I’m feeling like I am”
“I have found the MoodMaster programme really helpful, I have benefitted from it so much! I enjoyed the content and learnt useful techniques to help with my anxiety, so I would definitely recommend this course”
In addition to MoodMasters, Claire introduced BACES (Body care, Achievement, Connecting with Others, Enjoyment and Step Back). This consisted of bite sized reminders to self-check your wellbeing, including tips, ideas, research activities and resources. These were shared daily on the College’s Instagram account and weekly roundups on the website. BACES increased connectivity at a vital time, when both students and staff were finding the lockdown difficult to cope with.
The College also ran connections activities where both students and staff signed up for various virtual activities from making scones, gaming groups, debating and football activities, managed by Senior Tutors Diane Beaven and Anna Shaw. These activities allowed for students to socially interact and engage with each other, during a time when social interactivity was limited.
Simon Lett, Principal at Greenhead College said:
“We are thrilled that Claire has been recognised in this way at the prestigious Sixth Form College Association Awards. It is a reflection of the time and energy she and her team have put into supporting students throughout the lockdown period. Well done to Claire and the entire ALS team!
The College was also a Bronze Winner for the ‘2021 Lockdown Hero Award for Learner and Community Support’ at the Pearson National Teaching Awards – a real testament to Claire, the ALS team, and the wider staff community including our Tutors, Teachers and Support Staff for the vital role they play in supporting our students.”
Congratulations to our A1 student, Nathan Grange who was awarded with 3rd place at the National Oxford University Computing Competition. Nathan, who previously attended Kettlethorpe High School, is currently studying 5 A Levels in Computer Science, Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics at Greenhead College.
Nathan took part in the first round of the competition alongside his other classmates, who were encouraged to enter by our Computer science department. In round 1 (The Bebras Challenge) only the top 10% nationally qualified for round 2 and amongst a few others, Nathan made it through to the next round. Congratulations to all our other students involved in the challenge.
The 2nd round consisted of 12 Programming tasks to be completed within 1 hour, there was seemingly lots to do in a short space of time. The top 20 students to complete these tasks then went on to compete in the 3rd round, the national finals.
Nathan flew through to the national finals which again, consisted of 12 tasks of programming to be completed within an hour. Nathan explained that
“The hardest part was the timing, as you only had 1 hour to complete 12 tasks. The tasks definitely got harder with each round”
Nathan came an impressive 3rd place out of the 20 remaining contestants, Nathan said that he is really pleased to have come 3rd place, as are we! Nathan would like to study either Computer Science or Maths at university. Once again, a huge congratulations to Nathan, we are so proud of you!
We are so excited to announce that our very own GC student, Zara Tyas, who previously attended Honley High school, is celebrating an outstanding achievement as she has been selected for Team Great Britain in High Jump after jumping an incredible 1m 80cm.
Her interest in sport started from a young age when Zara was a gymnast and it wasn’t until the age of 15 that she realised athletics was her passion. Zara is an extremely committed athlete who regularly travels to Stockport and Loughborough to train in High Jump and Heptathlon.
“I had to come top of the rankings in the under 20’s in order to qualify for Team GB”, Zara explained.
With her previous record jump being 1m 71cm, it has taken Zara a lot of hard work and dedication to jump the extra 9cm, which qualified her for the team.
With Zara’s week mainly consisting of training 5-6 days a week for 4-6 hours, it has been a challenge to balance this around her college work. However, Zara, who studies A Levels in PE, Chemistry and Maths has received great support from Greenhead College to encourage her ambitions in sport. Travelling the country for competitions and keeping up with college work has proven to be quite time consuming and the PE department in particular, have supported Zara through her athletics journey.
Simon Lett, Principal at Greenhead College said
“We are absolutely thrilled to see that Zara has qualified for Team GB and have no doubt that she will go on to achieve amazing success in the future”.
Sue Young, Head of the PE department then added
“What a fantastic achievement and thoroughly deserved after all your hard work. We are so very proud of you”.
Now Zara has jumped 1m 80cm, she is now aiming to compete at the Europeans and the Worlds. To qualify for the Worlds, she will need to jump 1m 84cm.
Congratulations to Zara, this is an incredible accomplishment. We wish her the very best of luck and success for the future.
Congratulations to A1 student Miles Kelly, who has been announced as the winner of the Greenhead College New Music Competition 2021
Open to all students across West Yorkshire aged 18 or below, the Music Competition was designed by the Greenhead College Music Department to create an opportunity for students to be creative during lockdown. To enter, students were asked to write a piece of music – anything at all from a song, to a piece of music for a string quartet.
The competition received an outstanding number of entries and the following students made the shortlist:
Jerome Dodd (Greenhead College)
Xiana Harron (Greenhead College)
Miles Kelly (Greenhead College)
Oliver Bates (Greenhead College)
Tobias Cooper (Greenhead College)
Joshua Ellwood (Shelley College)
Nathan Webster (Honley High)
Judging the competition was London based composer, musician and producer Paul Silver, who chose Miles’ song ‘Buzzy Bees in Poppy Fields’ as the winner.
Paul said:
“This piece of music really made me smile, took me on a journey and overall gave me the best feel emotionally.”
Miles’ prize for winning the competition is a £50 Amazon Voucher which he has decided to spend towards an Audio Interface.
Commenting on his win Miles said:
“I originally wrote the song as a Valentines Day gift for my girlfriend, Poppy (hence the title and lyrics). Both of us are really pleased with the win and the money will go towards my future music through an audio interface.
I think I’d like to study physics at university and do something in that field if possible, but if a music career takes off I’ll follow that in a heartbeat. Music and physics are my two big passions and I’ll continue to do both to some degree no matter what I do in the future.”
Simon Jacobs, Head of Music at Greenhead College commented:
“We were delighted with the response to the New Music Competition, we received a great number of entries in a wide variety of genres. Congratulations to Miles on his outstanding entry, when shortlisting the finalists for judging from Paul Silver I had already privately tipped Miles to win- it is a lovely feel good piece of music.”
Congratulations to Miles, and well done to all students involved.
Listen to Miles’ song ‘Buzzy Bees in Poppy Fields’ below.
Greenhead College has an excellent record of success at the British Education Awards, winning the ‘A Level Student of the Year’ category for the north of England three years in succession.
We were hugely disappointed to hear that this year’s awards ceremony had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as we had nominated a superb candidate in Emily Brierley, who we hoped would win us the award for the fourth year in a row!
Undeterred, we decided to present Emily with our own ‘Student of the Year’ award.
Emily left Greenhead in the summer of 2020 with A Levels in Philosophy, Religion & Ethics, Psychology and Sociology. She is a Youth Ambassador for the Mindfulness in Schools Project and has used this as a platform to promote mindfulness to young people. During her time in College, Emily devoted her time and energy to developing and delivering mindfulness to College students.
Emily said:
“I have always been passionate about helping others by using the tools which have helped me so much. Mindfulness is something that is so important, especially for young people and so to bring this into Greenhead College was an exciting opportunity for me.
“It’s an absolute honour to receive this award and it means a lot to me that I was able to make an impact upon the College and the students there.”
College Principal Simon Lett said:
“As the British Education Awards aren’t running this year, we thought we should find a way to commemorate Emily’s impressive achievements. This award is richly deserved and Emily has an amazing future ahead of her.”
Emily is currently studying Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester.
Adjust your device’s screen brightness settings so you’re not straining your eyes. Light filters are built into most devices, or you can download apps for your device. For more information check out the BACES link page on Moodle.
Tuesday – Achievement
Study Bunny
No motivation to study? Meet your Study Bunny! Try this motivational productive study timer to help you stay focused. Time your study with the timer, hit pause when you can’t stay focused for motivational advice. View your study stats in the study tracker by month or by week. Study to earn coins. Buy items or music in the store for your bunny with your coins. Be productive. Use optional tools like the To Do list, flash cards and Honesty Mode.
Wednesday – Connect with Others
Todays task: Send a funny picture to a friend. Why? Because people who feel more connected to others have lower rates of anxiety and depression. Connecting with others makes us smile, and produces feel good chemicals in the brain. It reduces isolation and we may also receive something funny in return!
Thursday – Enjoyment
A Doodle a day
A lot of learning in college requires specific higher level thinking skills but how many of us engage our visual brain on a regular basis? Why not challenge yourself to ‘A Doodle A Day’. Dust down those pencils, find yourself a notebook and have go. It’s not about the end product but a great way to relax and switch off with a form of proactive daydreaming. Click here for the ‘A doodle a day’ challenge.
Friday – Step Back
5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique for Anxiety
Anxiety is something most of us have experienced at least once in our life. This five-step exercise can be helpful during periods of anxiety or panic by helping to ground you in the present when your mind is bouncing around between various anxious thoughts. Once you find your breath, go through the following steps to help ground yourself:
5: Acknowledge FIVE things you see around you
4: Acknowledge FOUR things you can touch around you
