Enrichment, Trips and Events
To support your studies, we provide you with wider enrichment, designed to help you towards a fulfilling and successful future.
Your experience of Cowes is a lot more than just gaining excellent qualifications. We want to help you make memories and friendships for life as well as prepare you for your chosen university course, apprenticeship or career.
We enable our sixth formers to develop confidence, self-motivation and leadership skills through our rich curriculum opportunities and enrichment activities. Each year a range of leadership opportunities are available to you, such as becoming part of the Sixth Form Student Leadership Team, running or supporting clubs and activities for peers or younger students or taking part in our many sporting event.
You also have access to a rich and varied range of clubs, sports teams and creative groups, ranging from the science fair to the pool tournament, band night, cinema evenings and cookery competitions to sixth form sailing club.
You will be presented with a wealth of opportunities to stretch yourself intellectually, including Olympiads for mathematics, Mock Trial Competition, Noel Turner Science Festival, Senior Maths Challenge and Debating Symposium.
We offer a myriad of activities and opportunities, including participation in a wide range of sporting and social events, including the National Island Games, Resilience Challenge, and Literary Festival.
A work-life balance is an important part of getting the most from your sixth form experience. We provide a wealth of social and leisure activities. Hiring Tapnell Farm for our Christmas party, regular visits to Headhunters and numerous events from cinema evenings to band nights enable our students to make friends easily.
Our unique charter award programme enables students to undertake impressive extra-curricular activities, working towards achieving bronze, silver or even gold charter awards at the end of Year 12, achievements that support their application to a university or degree apprenticeship. The sought-after Gold Charter Award is given to those students who go above and beyond, changing the community, seeking exceptional work experience, showing real initiative in working towards bright futures.
Your journey to independence begins at sixth form. Through our Charter, we enable you to seek intellectually enriching opportunities and experiences such as work placements, university visits, interview and exam preparation masterclasses, inspirational speaker tours and industry professional mentoring. We believe our students should receive equal opportunities to succeed and that extra-curricular achievements are a key to this.
During your time at Cowes Sixth Form, you will have an additional timetabled lesson every week through our unique charter programme, which invites an elite range of visitors to provide you with the top opportunities to access top careers. Our programme also enhances and educates students on their personal development. Recent charter activities have included learning CPR, student led presentations on alcohol safety, self-defence and contraception.
Our charter programme covers 3 key strands, with all students completing at least one activity from each area.
Undertake additional courses, academic research or an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) in partnership with the University of Southampton to gain an academic advantage to support your future, with more UCAS points, lower offers and a better university place – not to mention a depth and breadth of knowledge, interests and understanding of subjects you choose and love.
A highlight of our year is the Sixth Form Showcase evening, where students present their amazing EPQs to parents, friends and the wider community.
Expand your interests through the rewarding experiences we offer both within and beyond our learning community. As a central part of our Sixth Form Charter, our students are tasked with making an impact in the community.
We offer extensive opportunities for volunteering and access to the wealth of enrichment opportunities on offer, working closely with the IW Literary Festival, NHS Youth Trust, Earl Mountbatten Hospice, The British Legion, the RYS and many more.
Within the school community, our academic and wellbeing mentors support their peers in a wide range of ways, volunteering as mentors in academic achievement and wellbeing as well as sports leaders and in the sixth form band.
With us, your bespoke work placements run within our timetable, with, for instance, our medical students having weekly placements at hospitals during the school day.
Many students choose a workplace experience aligned to their course options while others try out a completely new working environment. Whether you come back confident that you know where you are headed, or full of questions over what your future might hold, you will receive the guidance you need at every stage from our Careers Leadership Team.
Our students visit UCAS Discovery events every year and make trips to aspirational universities, from a yearly trip to Oxford and Cambridge, to UCL, Bath and Surrey, to the University of Southampton where we work in partnership with their expert researchers to achieve top EPQ grades for students, with more than half gaining A or A* in the EPQ.
The EPQ is a single piece of work of your choosing involving planning, preparation, research and independent work. You plan your own topic which goes beyond your A-level subjects. Your final project is either an extended essay or an artefact (something you have created) with a report. It is worth 50% of an A-level and is done in addition to your A-levels.
Completing an EPQ gives you a head start in your research-led education and independent study. The skills gained in academic research, report writing, presentation and referencing will prove vital during your future degree, apprenticeship or career. Equivalent to half an A-level, an EPQ requires students to complete a self-directed and self-motivated project on a topic of their choice. This can either be a research-based, written report or dissertation, a performance, design or artefact.
Read more about out 2026 Showcase here: Sixth Form celebrate academic excellence at EPQ showcase
There are many events throughout the year where support from sixth form students is welcomed and where students have a chance to be an ambassador for our academy.
These include helping with Information Evenings, Open Evenings, Presentation and Celebration Evenings and showing prospective students around our academy.
Our students raise thousands of pounds for local, regional or national charities. It is an excellent opportunity to get involved in in a variety of activities to raise money for a good cause.
For students who want to use or improve their leadership skills and be proactive, there is an opportunity to join out Sixth Form Leadership Team. The team leads initiatives, organises events, gets involved with matters pertaining to the sixth form and plays a leading role in the school and local community.
Every year, we put on a major production in which sixth form students often play leading roles. The productions are hugely successful and there are many opportunities to get involved in the acting, make up, stage management, lighting, set design, leading rehearsals etc.
Cowes Sixth Form is committed to providing all three levels of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award – Bronze, Silver and Gold. Students who achieve the award demonstrate resilience, commitment, problem solving and strategic planning over a sustained period of time. All of these also count towards your community charter award.
The CCF is an exciting initiative for you to develop employability and life skills and helps build an excellent personal statement for the future. There is an extensive range of activities on offer such as weapon handling, adventure training, leadership overnight and weekend exercises.
Cadets also gain recognised qualifications such as the BTEC in Teamwork and Personal Development in the Community or the ILM Level 3 Award in Leadership and Management. Cowes Sixth form students play an integral part in our Combined Cadet Force consisting of two sections Army and RAF.
The Sixth Form Sports Leaders role gives you the opportunity to take on leadership responsibility and promote the things you enjoy. As a sports leader, you can run lunchtime and after school events with the lower years, in a variety of different sports. You provide a significant contribution to the organisation and the running of sports day; from leading events to handing out trophies, even participating yourself. There is an opportunity to complete your Sports Leaders Level 3 Qualification, which is recognised by UCAS and can provide valuable experiences which could aid your future ambitions.
The extracurricular sports activities vary from being included in whole school activities such as Netball, to sixth form exclusive clubs which can be influenced by the interests of the current sixth form students and these clubs can allow you to compete alongside other island sixth forms, or even progress to county level competitions. Becoming a sports leader is a valuable experience that can benefit your own skills as well as improving the skills and confidence of the students you are leading.
