Athena College Consultation
Athena College Consultation
As you may be aware, Cambridgeshire Educational Trust has been working to enhance and refine provision at Athena College, our 16-18 site in Downham Market. We are extremely keen to safeguard the only sixth form provision in the town, and know that providing a wide ranging academic offer alongside an exceptional enrichment programme is key to creating the thriving, successful sixth form college that Downham Market deserves. With rising outcomes at Downham Market Academy seeing increasing numbers of students able to access the provision available at our sixth form we are committed to continuing along this path of improvement and growth by further developing our offer.
One of the core foci of our recent discussions has been to consider how we can best support the most aspirational students wishing to study at Athena College. Our plans outlined below seek to use the trust’s Cambridge city site in our endeavour to provide a broadened curriculum offer and appealing enrichment programme, particularly aimed at high attaining students interested in pursuing an academic route into higher education at prestigious universities.
In order to develop the provision at Athena College in line with the vision above, the following enhancements to our current provision are proposed:
- Students can continue to study their A Level courses solely in Downham Market
- To broaden the sixth form curriculum by offering a number of academic courses to students which will be undertaken in Cambridge, to include Latin, classical civilisation, law and philosophy
- To offer a bespoke enrichment programme across both sites, with particular focus on Oxbridge preparation, making use of all the opportunities Cambridge city has to offer as well as our existing links with several university colleges
- To facilitate the above by providing a funded transport plan for those students who will be studying at Athena College in a dual-site capacity
- We are not seeking to develop a vocational post-16 offer
We are confident that by utilising the best of the opportunities Cambridge city can offer in conjunction with an extensive, expert led curriculum offer we will retain and attract the numbers required to maintain and futureproof the existence of excellent sixth form provision for the community of Downham Market.
If you have any feedback on our proposals regarding Athena College, please send feedback to revansali@chesterton.cambs.sch.uk
The consultation will close at midday on Friday 14th February 2020.