Careers and Higher Education Information Evening

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Following our previous letter regarding the ESF HE Fair and our Careers and HE programme, we would like to extend an invitation to both you and your daughter/son to our annual Y12 HE Information Evening as scheduled in the school diary.  I would also like to provide further details about our Higher Education (HE) support programme and schedule details about the forthcoming HE evening.

As students progress through their senior years at school, questions and concerns related to how and when to apply to universities increase.  The challenge of getting ‘the best’ HE placements seems to cause considerable stress for many families each year.

We would like to emphasise that our aim is to support students in finding and gaining places in ‘the best’ higher education programmes and careers for them.  In addition to the preliminary guidance through the GTS programme in Years 9-11, we have hosted several visits from HE institutions and organisations and have advertised several other University/HE events in the community.  We hope that these have triggered some discussion regarding ‘where’ and ‘what’ to study as well as how to consider what potential pathways are best.  In addition to the guidance booklet, which your family will receive as a pdf attachment to a follow up email, each student will also have an opportunity for an individual consultation with a Careers/HE Counsellor before the summer holiday.  There will also be 3-4 days of class time dedicated to research and application planning immediately following the ‘End of Y12 Examinations’ in late May/early June.  This is to ensure that each student is on track with their research and is prepared to begin the application process when they return in Year 13.

During the HE Information Evening on 21^st March, we will provide an overview of our support programme and address some general questions that parents might have regarding the university application process.  We will also have a number of smaller group meetings focused on the finer details of various application processes with guests and university representatives from our most popular destinations (U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Hong Kong and Australia) and some of our most popular specialist career-related courses.

The schedule for the evening is as follows:

During the two sets of presentations, families will have an opportunity to hear about and ask questions related to different career paths as well as the specific application process for each of our major destinations.  The format of these sessions will be a presentation followed by a question/answer session.  Most presentations will run for both the first and second sessions, and will have the same content presented.  This will allow for families to hear from and interact with more than one of our guests.

Information sessions will include some or all of the following (depending on the presentation):

In order to ensure that rooming is suitably arranged, we would be most grateful if you would complete and return the reply form below to indicate whether or not you will be attending the evening and how many people from your family will attend particular information sessions.  Please indicate this by writing the number of people attending in the corresponding space for each session/topic.  Please send your reply slip by hand from your daughter/son to the Careers Room Office or by email as indicated below.

We would like to conclude by emphasising that, while this event is an important part of our parent-school communication regarding your daughter’s/son’s progress towards their future, we also encourage you to contact us with questions or concerns at any time by e-mail, fax or phone.

We look forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday, 21^st March.

Kind regards,

Patrick Campbell – Head of Careers & HE                                 David Stott – Careers & HE Counsellor