Almost 500 Year 11 students from across Cumbria Education Trust’s (CET’s) secondary schools and academies were brought together for the trust’s first ever Year 11 Revision Conference in preparation for the summer 2019 exams.

The cross-trust event, held at Carlisle Racecourse, brought bus loads of students from William Howard School in Brampton, The Whitehaven Academy and Workington Academy to participate in a programme of events and workshops.

The students were divided into groups where they focused on revision for English and Maths as well as subjects across the whole curriculum.  Maximising the experience and expertise of teachers from all three academies they explored strategies for reviewing and evaluating their work and top tips to memorise facts, figures and topics.

Before they got down to the workshops, they heard a welcome from Mrs Hughes, Chief Executive of CET which inspired students to strive to ‘be the best they can be’ and to work hard and reach their full potential.   Motivational speaker, Hannah Kennedy-Jackson shared a very personal story about her background and education. Despite enormous adversity as a child, surrounded by violence and negativity and sometimes making the wrong choices, applying herself to her education gave her the means to succeed in life.

Speaking about the day, Mrs Hughes said:

“As a trust, our first priority is a relentless focus on students and providing them with high quality teaching and learning.  This is evidenced in events such as today where we have created a fantastic learning environment for sharing best practice, supporting and challenging our students and helping them to understand the importance of preparation for their GCSE examinations and beyond.”

“Collaboration is integral to the way CET operates, and this is one of the many cross-trust pupil/student and staff events planned this year.  It was wonderful to see so many of our students working and learning together and hopefully making new friends.”