A new sixth form has opened in the city for Nottingham A-level students after a refurbishment costing £250,000. In September, Djanogly City Academy opened its new sixth form and welcomed its first cohort of 45 students who are each studying a variety of A-levels.
The sixth form is based within Djanogly City Academy’s Sherwood Rise site. The £250,000 investment has allowed for a range of sixth form facilities to be created, including 15 classrooms just for the key stage five students, a study hub, library and careers room.
The refurbishment also included a new reception area and toilet block. The sixth form has the ability to offer 20 different A-levels, but due to the choices made by students they will only be running 17 for the current Year 12s. These include art, biology, business, chemistry, computer science, economics, English language, English literature, further maths, geography, history, maths, sociology, philosophy and ethics, physics, and psychology.
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However, the sixth form will also be offering the extended project qualification and a BTEC National in Sport, which is equivalent to A Levels. Whilst pupils are known as scholars during key stage three and four, once they move into sixth form pupils will be referred to as students.
Andy Smith, Principal of Djanogly City Academy, said: "Our scholars had for some time been talking to us about the possibility to stay on to do A-levels. We developed a Scholar Leadership Team with the aim of creating our own sixth form committee.
"We have a sixth form for the last number of years, but we wanted to broaden that. Over the last year or so we have developed and built this new facility."
The team helped the faculty research what A-level provisions were already in the area and what was needed. Students were given opportunities to share views on what they would like to see in a sixth form, and the school took onboard this feedback where possible, including on what furniture to buy and where to buy it from.
Andy said he is "thrilled" to have welcomed the first cohort into A-levels, and hopes the new sixth form will be able to prepare them for future careers. He said: "We can afford to run relatively small classes so our students here are getting very close support from our teachers.
"We have small classes and we have excellent teachers, most of the teachers the students already knew. It's been an ambition of ours for a number of years to open up a new sixth form site. It's lovely to see that our scholars in KS4 want to stay with us as students into KS5.
"We will continue with the programme we are currently offering. We love this city that we live and work in, and I like to think our scholars will go on to make a real difference to the city of Nottingham."
Head of sixth form, Joe Irons, added: "I think I couldn't be more impressed with the students that we have. They have started off the year just using their time effectively as a whole, whether that's in lessons or whether that's in study periods."
On Thursday, November 3, the sixth form will be opening its doors to the public for an open evening, which will take place from 6pm until 8pm. Visitors will be able to tour the new facilities, meet staff and current students.
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