Welcome letter

Welcome to Longley Park Sixth Form  

Dear parent or carer,  

First, I want to congratulate all those students who received GCSE results in August. From across the city, there were some brilliant outcomes that reflected the hard work and determination that students had put into their studies. I am thrilled that your child has chosen to study with us at Longley Park Sixth Form.  

Joining Longley Park is not just about taking on a set of subjects. For our students, it's the start of Project You. A time for young people to focus on themselves and their futures. We encourage students to take advantage of all the opportunities open to them: enrichment, trips, activities, groups and more. Every student has the potential to be brilliant at Longley Park and working with you as parents and carers, we can achieve this.  

Induction and the start of lessons  

We have been excited to meet so many new faces to the Sixth Form throughout enrolment and are looking forward to teaching starting this week. All students have been invited to an induction day this week: 

• Level 2 students: Wednesday, 7th September at 9am  
• New Level 3 students: Thursday, 8th September at 9am  

Here, they will be given their timetables, briefed about key elements of the Sixth Form and our student expectations will be made clear. From the induction session, lessons will commence and students will be straight into their learning journey from Friday. 

Welcome event for Parents and Carers of New Students  

On Thursday 15th September at 5:30pm we would like to invite you to come to the Sixth Form for our Evening Welcome event for the Parents of New Students. Here you will get to meet key members of the Sixth Form team, hear about what it is like to be a student at Longley Park and how you can support your child to be successful throughout their studies. As part of the event, we will be offering the opportunity to sample some of the food from our canteen, in addition everyone that attends will be entered into the draw for the chance to win a £30 Meadowhall voucher to help students be prepared for their learning. I hope that you can join us.  

Useful Information  

Attached to this welcome letter are a few pieces of information we feel will be useful for you to have as a parent or carer.  

• Accessing Cedar – this is our online parent portal. Here you will be able to track the progress, attendance and any concerns and commendations that are received. It’s a great way to keep informed about what is happening at the Sixth Form.  Click here to view.
• BTEC student handbook – many of our students study BTEC qualifications and for some, this maybe a different way of studying. We want to support students to make the transition to this qualification and this handbook outlines expectations, demands and rules around the submission of work. Click here to view.
• Information around Sixth Form ID – to keep our site safe, we ask all students to always wear an ID card when they are on site. The ID card is also a student’s card for printing and to spend bursary money in the canteen. Where a student continues to forget their card on multiple occasions, we will refuse them entry to the site. The process around this is detailed on the attached letter.  Click here to view.
• Wellbeing support apps – starting at a new sixth form can be an emotional time for some. We have a wellbeing team to help students settle into their new surroundings. There are also a range of apps that students can access to support their wellbeing throughout their time with us.  Click here to view.

Parent Members of our Academy Advisory Council  

I would like to take this opportunity to invite interest to join our Academy Advisory Council (AAC). Each AAC consists of a group of people who could be parents, community nominees and academy staff. In attendance at these meetings will be Link Trustees and a member of the Trust Leadership Team. The key aims of the AAC are to act as a ‘critical friend’ to the Sixth Form; to advise about local issues we may need to consider that could affect the Sixth Form; to represent the interest of the community in the running of the Sixth Form and to represent the Sixth Form in the community. If you would be interested in supporting us on our AAC or know of a local stakeholder that could work with us, please do email me directly on principal@longleypark.ac.uk. 

I hope that together, we can support all students here at Longley Park Sixth Form to start strong and make good choices. 

Yours faithfully,  

Jamie Davies 

Executive Principal