Sixth Form Drama and Performing Arts students have recently spent two days in London discovering the progression routes into a career in the Arts as part of our Aim Higher programme.

Sixth Form Media students have recently turned author-illustrators for a BTEC unit on Graphic Narrative. Eighteen students in total have written and illustrated a range of children's story books and comics for a variety of age groups, with exceptional results. Their work has now been produced as a collection of hard-back books.

Sixth Form Media students were recently visited by Duncan Leatherdale, Senior Reporter for the Northern Echo. Duncan came to King James to talk about his experience of journalism as a career and to offer practical advice on how to write an effective magazine article; this will help students in their current BTEC unit.

Our Sixth form students are celebrating after another year of success and improvement in AS and A2 examination results. We wish to congratulate the superb attitude and efforts of these students in achieving such high standards.

Once again, our A Level Performing Arts students have created some ground breaking performances this year, described by the visiting moderator as "the best he has seen this year'.

This year, our BTEC Creative Media courses were further developed to include print-based media units alongside our already popular film studies. This allows students to develop additional skills in commercial graphic design, publishing, journalism, promotion and marketing.

Year 12 students have been put through their paces in a "boot camp' style training session held by the Royal Marines, who were invited to King James by our Health and Social Care department.

Year 12 students have recently visited Linton's Printers in Crook to learn about commercial printing as part of their Print-Based Media studies. The visit was arranged so that students could gain a better understanding of the process involved in lithographic printing, a commercial process used to produce high quality printed products, including Vision magazine.

Sixth Form students have recently returned from a careers event at Sunderland University aimed at those studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).

Our Sixth Form is growing rapidly and so is our provision. This September will see improved study and social facilities and an even greater choice of subjects.