Year 12 assembly
Tuesday 4 February 2025
Year 12 Assembly, Tuesday 4 February
The timeline…
Thursday 13 February – Student Futures
Evening
Thursday 27 March – Art and Photography Exams
22 April to 6 May – Summer Exams
May – work begins on entrance test preparation 3 June – Food and Nutritional Science
11 June – UCAS Personal Statement Writing Workshop 12 June – Parents’ Evening
16 June – Provisional UCAS Predicted Grades issued 1July – EPQ Submission
Sept – Resits
Sept – Confirmation of UCAS Predicted Grades
19 Sept – Deadline for booking UCAT tests
Oct – Oxbridge/Medicine/Vet Med applications and registration for tests
Oct onwards – University entrance tests
Oct half-term – deadline for UCAS applications
January - Mocks
January – Parents’ Evening
What should I be doing right now?
• You should be doing everything you can to work out what life and education might look like for you beyond the Sixth Form at Claremont and be doing everything in your power to make yourself the best possible candidate to achieve that goal…
How do I work out what the future looks like for me?
• Try and develop your own ‘academic identity’ – what are you passionate about and why…?
• Take advantage of any and every type of super curricular opportunity to expose yourself to what university study and professional life might look like and why. Olympiads, Essay Comps, JGP, JGP lectures, Mrs Jones’s Critical Thinking group, Eng/Medic/Law mentoring, JGP competition, MOOCs, UCAS fair, visiting universities, reading widely, podcasts, online lectures, reading quality magazines and newspapers…
• Go the Student Futures Evening and be proactive – talk to universities and professionals that catch your eye. What do they do?
What does it look like? What do you want to see?
• You might not work out exactly what it is you want, but unless you try you will never know!
How do I become a great candidate?
• This is specific to the course and the institution but there is one guiding principle…
• Be as proactive an independent learner as possible. Take and create opportunities whereby you can show that you have engaged with the type of content and skills your desired course and institution would want to see that takes you above and beyond your A Level studies
• Everybody is doing A Levels. What are you doing that will make a difference?
• These super-curricular themes will form the basis of a compelling application and make you stand out
Do GCSEs and predicted grades matter?
• Yes. These are the two objective data points universities always look at.
• Your average GCSE point score matters in making you a competitive candidate at top universities plus also check entry requirements carefully. You may need to have a certain GCSE grade in Maths or Eng Lang for some literacy or numeracy-based courses.
• Your predicted grades also matter. You are more likely to achieve offers with higher predictions.
• PLEASE READ: Our UCAS predictions are based on evidence not hope and aspiration. You need to provide consistent evidence of performance at the level you are aspiring to
What are university entry tests, and do they matter?
▶ University entrance tests are used by an increasing range of institutions to make judgements between strong candidates at a number of institutions.
▶ They used to be the reserve of Oxbridge and Cambridge but are now used for Law (LNAT), Engineering (ESAT), Medicine (UCAT) and numeracy based courses (TMUA) at a number of other institutions such as Imperial, UCL, Durham and Warwick but are increasingly rapidly.
▶ Where an institution say it is a requirement – they matter hugely and need to be prepared for carefully.
What should my typical week look like right now…?
▶ Your first priority is to make sure your performance at A Level is as good as it can be. Use study periods, evenings and weekends to prepare for tests, review essays and practice answers – A Levels are hard. There is no shortcut.
▶ Reserve sometime, if you can, to engage in Super Curricular opportunities –JGP is excellent but aim to read, watch, listen and write beyond your A Levels if you are excited about the possible options ahead.
▶ Use UniFrog and the Student Futures team, UCAS subject contacts and mentors to match your interests and super-curricular evidence to courses and institutions – try to work out as early as you can if you will be taking a test as part of an application. Don’t be scared about it – it is a chance to show off!
How do you maximise your chances of getting the Peter Brand moment…
- There is always something to do – you are the architect of your own future. Those who succeed are always thinking ‘what can I do next that will help me develop my ideas on…’
- Be ambitious – self-fulfilment only comes when you know you have reached your potential, whatever that looks like for you.
- Be prepared to take a risk – I appreciate it can be emotionally challenging to aim high, put in time and effort, go the extra mile and even then, sometimes not achieve your goal. But you never know unless you try and all the hard work will make you better in your A Levels, better as a candidate and better as a future professional and undergraduate
How do you maximise your chances of getting the Peter Brand moment…
