Y8 Advocacy Day 2010 Letter to Parents

June 2010

GCSE Citizenship 2011: Coursework Advocacy Day

Dear Parent/Guardian

Further to my letter of the Autumn Term, I am writing to update you about the GCSE Citizenship course which your daughter has been following since September.  

As you know, a vital component of the Course involves each student acting as an ‘Advocate’ for a Voluntary Organisation/Pressure Group or Local Environmental Issue.   The students work through five stages during the completion of their ‘Controlled Assessment’ (Coursework) which is worth 60% of the total marks.   During Year 8 we have been concentrating on helping the students to choose the cause they wish to support, and explaining the many ways in which they can try to persuade different groups of people (stakeholders) to get on board.  To gain an A or A* grade for their Coursework, students have to provide evidence that they have been successful in this aim. Most students are now in a position to be able to carry out their advocacy, indeed many have begun to do so.  The formal write up will begin in September.

To help provide our students with the best chance of gaining top marks in their Coursework, it is proposed to give all Year 9 the chance to carry out their advocacy within the community on Tuesday 28^th September 2010, i.e. the fourth week of their Year 9. This means that any Year 9 student who wishes to have this day out of school to carry out their advocacy will be allowed to do so. It will not be possible for students to be away from school for this purpose on any other day, and this offer is entirely optional: Year 9 lessons will run as normal for any students who do are unable or do not wish to develop their Coursework in this way.

The many different things the students might do with this time have been discussed exhaustively in class, but typical examples would be a visit to their former Primary School to carry out a presentation to the pupils, a questionnaire survey at various relevant locations or a meeting with a key stakeholder.  Quite apart from being of potentially enormous benefit to the students’ Coursework, we feel that this new innovation will offer much scope for the girls to develop many valuable personal qualities and skills such as initiative, leadership and so on.

You will appreciate that it is impossible for the School to manage all 120 individual students on this day.  Therefore, we have to ask that if you wish your daughter to take advantage of this proposal, you as parent/guardian will take full responsibility for all aspects of the care and management of your daughter on this day, and for any associated Health and Safety issues. As I explained in my first letter to you, no student should work unsupervised with strangers, have sole responsibility for younger children, work with any type of hazardous equipment or participate in any other activity that you would not normally agree to. 

Copies of all the key resources that have been used to support the students in preparing them for their advocacy are available on the school website at http://www.tggs.torbay.sch.uk/ by clicking ‘Academic’ on the home page, then ‘Departments’ and finally ‘Citizenship’.  I would request that you please discuss this opportunity with your daughter and especially ask to see a copy of her ‘Advocacy Proposal’ and ‘Update & Media Self Assessment’ Forms as these contain detailed information about her plans.  Could you then please complete the attached reply slip overleaf and return it to your daughter’s Tutor by Monday 5^th July.

I do hope that you will find this information helpful and agree that the idea of an Advocacy Day represents an exciting opportunity for the students.  If your daughter is unable to be involved in the Day, she will have plenty of other means of showing her advocacy skills within school, at weekends or during the holidays.   

Yours sincerely

Mr Chris Charlwood

Deputy Head