Sixth Form Department
The fundamental aim of the Transition/Sixth Form Department is to help everyone realise their full potential from young adulthood to adult life. This process involves more than just the acquisition of knowledge. It aims to develop the ‘core’ aptitudes, personal and interpersonal skills considered essential for participation in the personal, social, and economic life in their community. A healthy partnership with parents/carers is essential to encourage development of these skills and aptitudes.
There are currently four classes within the department and the wide range of activities/ opportunities offered are designed to enhance independence, maximize their employability for the future world of work, raise self-esteem and self-confidence as well as preparing them for the transition pathway into adulthood and post school placements.
The Transition/ Sixth Form Programme focuses on the following areas:
• Learning for Life and Work (Home Economics, Personal Development, Local and Global Citizenship and Employability)
• Skills and Capabilities including functional numeracy, ICT, functional literacy, problem solving, self-management and working with others.
• Physical Health and Well-being.
Skills Builder
In Tor Bank we are working alongside the Skills Builder Partnership to provide our children with a framework to learn and embed the essential skills they will require to thrive in school life and beyond. It has also provided us with opportunities to create further positive interactions with our students where we are able to congratulate them on the use of their essential skills.
Emotion Works
A key concept of the Transition/Sixth Form Department is promoting both physical, social and emotional well being. We understand how important emotional wellbeing is to learning, so we have embedded Emotion Works into the curriculum as it helps children learn emotional language, develop emotional understanding and manage feelings and emotional behaviours.
This year we have reintroduced the Young Enterprise (Team Programme) which is led by Steven Burnett and provides our young people with the opportunity to develop several vocational and key skills such as communication skills, teamwork, listening, creativity, problem solving and speaking. We have also reestablished our links with local employers to enable our students to sample the world of work in a supportive and nurturing environment.
Tor Bank Radio goes from strength to strength and every Friday afternoon our radio team broadcast an hour long show full of music, chat and quizzes to the whole school via the TEAMS platform.
We also have an active Student Council which has chosen three charities to support this year and we will be holding an event each term to raise money for these worthy causes which the students have selected.
Our ECO Council is currently raising everyone’s awareness of climate change, ways to reduce their carbon footprint as well as making our school a greener environment. We are delighted to be a ‘green flag’ school.
Students are also actively encouraged to use a variety of external community facilities including swimming at Bangor Aurora Leisure, LIDL and attend the Thursday night Youth Club at Brooklands Community Centre.
Some students within the Transition/ Sixth Form Department can avail of the opportunity to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. It provides our students with an enjoyable, challenging and rewarding programme of personal development. Students who have participated in this award have developed in many ways; self-confidence, sense of responsibility, an understanding of strengths and areas for development, accepting responsibility for decisions, the ability to work as a team and problem solve.
