Welcome to the Accipio Learning newsletter. We are reintroducing our newsletter to give you regular updates each term which will include relevant education news, key information for Learning Mentors and news on developments and events at Accipio Learning.

We hope you find the newsletter useful - you can send us comments and feedback whenever you wish to newsletter@accipio-learning.com.

In this issue:

• Education News: Government proposals
• Learning Mentor Update: Controlled Assessment and APP
• Accipio News: The Virtual Prom; Accipio Twilight courses for November exams; and Pricing for 2010-11

Education News

Government proposals

Well, it’s all change from the rainbows of the DCSF to the introduction of a more austere blue badged DfE. In many areas it is the beginning of belt-tightening with some of the spending cuts already made public.

With the cuts to many of the NEET projects for post-16, it is now more essential than ever to access gateway qualifications for FE or employment. Our destination data suggests that Accipio’s students are well placed, with 95% of them going on to FE, employment or into apprenticeships and with a 98% pass rate and 46% A* to C. But we can’t be complacent – all our young people need recognised and valued qualifications to keep them on track and part of life-long learning.

The coalition government policies are becoming clearer as they find their feet. In the main we expect to see:-
• greater autonomy in a more diverse system of providers, with a premium on collaboration
• a "sharpening up" of Ofsted arrangements and more information provided to the public
• the introduction of a fair and transparent funding system - the pupil premium for those at most disadvantage, and
• changes to the National Curriculum.

Over the next few months, more and more detail will be released from the Department and we’ll be reading it all with interest and looking at how best we can serve the interests of our students.

Learning Mentor Update

Controlled Assessment

There are some major changes in the way coursework is run for our GCSE qualifications from September, which we wanted to highlight at an early stage so that everyone knows what will be required. Controlled assessments were first introduced with the ISA tests in Science. They have since replaced coursework in most GCSEs as of September 2009 and from this September, they are to be introduced in English and ICT.

Simply, it is a form of internal assessment where “control levels” have to be followed to ensure the reliability and authenticity of each student’s submission.

Students’ work now has to be produced under much tighter levels of scrutiny than previously and whilst Accipio Learning can assist with controlled assessments, Learning Mentors will need to take greater responsibility for its completion and be able to evidence its authentication as the student’s own.

Most of the assessments are set directly by the exam board so we will need you to make early provisional entries, access the controlled assessments and pass these over to us so we can teach and prepare your student for the tasks. We cannot access the controlled assessments directly, you must get the materials for us from your exam officer. Obviously the sooner the better – otherwise your student could lose out on vital learning for their GCSE success.

For many it will be a new way of working which has to be accommodated if your student is to have the opportunity to access GCSEs. Full details can be found on the Accipio mentor resource area which can be accessed using your Accipio mentor login via our website. Please take a careful look and contact us if you have any questions at education.support@accipio-learning.com.

APP and Student Tracking

Learning Mentors will already be very familiar with the daily assessment, recording and reporting mechanisms which we have in place to allow student tracking. With the introduction of APP (Assessing Pupil Progress) in KS3 we are looking at mechanisms to improve the availability and information value of data from our systems to allow better onwards and upwards reporting for Learning Mentors. It is a work in progress for both our KS3 and KS4 students which we’ll be reporting on in this newsletter as we progress.

As a first step to improving the usability of our student reporting system, from September Learning Mentors will see a new landing page when they log in. This “dashboard” will present Learning Mentors with a summary of data for all their students for the past week, including lesson attendance, completion of Challenge Sheets, Library usage and the number of available seats.

Accipio News

The Accipio Virtual Prom

It's Prom time again!

Now a regular fixture in the Accipio calendar, we held our third Virtual Prom for all our Year 11 students on Friday 18th June. It was a great opportunity for Accipio’s students to celebrate the end of their time with Accipio and say goodbye to their virtual school friends and teachers. We ran the usual Prom King & Queen competition based on student designed avatars, included time for all students to contribute to their Accipio Yearbook, handed out the Accipio ‘Oscars’ and had the teachers involved in the obligatory staff performance. For fun, if your firewall will allow it, click here to enjoy … it is loud, so do turn down your sound if you are an office environment!

http://www.insonoweb.co.uk/prom10/finale.html

All students are encouraged to let us know how they get on in their exams and to keep in touch via leavers10@accipio-learning.com

Twilight Courses for November Exams

As we are in the thick of GCSE exams, it might seem a bit early to start planning for re-takes and early entry GCSEs in November. But we like to look forward and after the success of our Twilight GCSE booster courses earlier this year, we are now offering six-week booster courses in English and Maths starting in September. These offer two lessons per subject per week and they are aimed at students who are borderline C/D grade. If you are interested in placing students on the Twilight courses, email us at learn.more@accipio-learning.com.

Accipio Prices - No rises for 2010-11

In an environment where all budgets are under scrutiny, we have been able to keep our prices for both Live teaching and the Accipio Library unchanged for the next 12 months. We hope this will help our customers to continue to provide high quality provision to their students in a very cost-effective way.