On Friday last week the first ever Extended Project Get Ahead Day took place and was a huge success. This Get Ahead Day gave the current Year 12 students the chance to concentrate solely on their Extended Project and make fantastic progress towards completing their 5000 word essays. As I am sure many of us can appreciate, often the hardest part of a big task is getting started and this day provides all the students both the time to focus on their project and the much needed one to one support from their project supervisor.

A Year 12 Extended Project is an additional qualification that all our Sixth Form students complete as part of their studies at Post 16. It is something we are incredibly proud to offer our students. The exciting aspect of any EPQ is that it can be based on any topic and any title, as it is actually the students themselves who decide upon the direction of their projects. The students work hard in the early months of Year 12 learning and developing independent study skills and begin the all important research into areas of interest. These areas of interest then blossom into fully fledged projects in the months after Christmas and with the support of their supervisor the project writing can begin. In the past we have welcomed projects ranging from child mental health to 3D animation and, it seems, all possibles inbetween. One particularly memorable project was on a modern interpretation of Dungeons and Dragons.

I am pleased to say that the students made outstanding efforts last week and they really did use their time wisely. I look forward to reading this year’s projects and celebrating all the effort made by the students.