Take Your Place

Which are the smartest ways to revise? 🧠📚

Swipe 👉 to see if you got it right!

At our Study Skills for Parents & Carers sessions last week, Helena - one of our brilliant Higher Education Champions at the University of East Anglia - shared a range of different retrieval practice techniques.

These techniques help students recall and embed what they’ve already learned, while identifying any gaps in their knowledge💡

Helena also gave practical tips on:
⏱️ Planning revision effectively
🍅 Using the Pomodoro method
🧩 Spacing revision so knowledge really sticks

Missed the session? Don’t worry!
🎥 The webinar recording is now available on our website: https://www.takeyourplace.ac.uk/parents-carers/study-skills/

Last week, we were delighted to welcome 206 children of Armed Forces families from 25 schools across East Anglia to our Festival of Friends* Pupil Voice events in Peterborough, Essex and Norwich 🎉🎉

It was wonderful to celebrate our Service children and spend time together building friendships and reflecting on and sharing experiences through poetry, song writing and art workshops ✨

A huge thank you to all the amazing children, schools and organisations involved for making them such special days Matt Blyton, The Armed Forces Education Trust, Such Innocence

*Festival of Friends is a collaborative, peer-supported programme for supporting Services children. Its key aims are to develop, and then share, good practice in the education and pastoral support for Services children, and to promote progression to further and higher education.

⚙️ Want to experience Engineering at the University of Cambridge? ⚙️

Join our FREE Future You Engineering Taster Day on the 19th March 🚀

Open to eligible young people in Years 9-13 as part of our Future You programme*

🔗 Click here to sign up: https://www.takeyourplace.ac.uk/students/year-7-11/future-you/

Any questions? Contact [email protected]

*Future You is a collaboration between neaco University and Further Education partners, and Virtual Schools in Norfolk, Suffolk, Peterborough and Cambridgeshire.

We had two fantastic subject taster events with some of our fabulous Future You students last week! 👏

On Tuesday, it was a Medicine and Health Sciences taster at the University of East Anglia and City College Norwich. On Thursday, it was a Social Work taster at the University of Suffolk, including an interesting visit to the mock court room on campus (pictured).

Head to our website to find out more about Future You, our free programme of events and activities designed especially for care-experienced young people: https://www.takeyourplace.ac.uk/students/year-7-11/future-you/

Parents and Carers 👋

Are you wondering how you can support your young person with their GCSE revision?

Come and join our free online advice and support session for practical tips, guidance, and strategies to help your young person to get started and stay focused, organised, and confident throughout their revision journey.

We’ll explore:
✨ Simple and effective revision techniques
✨ Skills to support GCSE success and beyond
✨ Confidence-building
✨ Useful resources you can use at home

🔗 Find out more and register here:

Events | neaco | Higher Education in East Anglia University and college open days and subject tasters - free events in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.

It’s National Apprenticeship Week 2026! 🎉

Apprenticeships are a fantastic pathway into rewarding careers, combining learning with real work experience.

As an apprentice, you’re employed and paid a salary while also completing formal classroom or online training and gaining a recognised qualification.

Apprenticeships are available across many sectors - from construction and engineering to business, digital, health and creative industries. There are several different levels depending on your age, experience and career goals - equivalent to GCSE through to full Bachelor’s or Master’s degree level.

👉 Discover a range of resources at takeyourplace.ac.uk/resources/apprenticeships

Last Thursday, we were thrilled to welcome our brilliant Future You students to the University of Cambridge for an energising Study Skills & Revision workshop! ✨

Together, we explored smart study techniques, practical strategies and confidence-building tips to help tackle GCSEs - and whatever comes next - with clarity and self-belief.

Future You is our free programme of events and activities designed especially for care-experienced young people, and we loved seeing everyone dive in, share ideas, and support one another.

Well done to all who took part! 🌟

📣 Our 2026 Raise Your Words programme kicked off at twelve schools across East Anglia last month 📣

Raise Your Words is a 9-week programme designed for Year 9 students. It aims to increase students’ attainment levels by developing their effective spoken language and listening, and non-verbal communication skills, whilst also building self-confidence, critical thinking, research, and teamwork skills.

“The first two sessions have been really well received by students who enjoyed spending time talking to one another and meeting new people from their year group” Programme delivery tutor.

Read more about the impact of our Raise Your Words programme here:https://www.takeyourplace.ac.uk/media/lttphz52/neaco-raise-your-words-24-25_report.pdf

🗣️ Developing Oracy Education through Lesson Study

We’re excited to invite schools across East Anglia to join the Oracy Education Community of Practice – Research Lesson Study programme, delivered in collaboration with Oracy Cambridge: The Centre for Effective Spoken Communication, University of Cambridge.

✨ What’s it about?
This programme brings teachers together to:
• Develop oracy through collaborative enquiry
• Work in small professional learning communities
• Use a Research Lesson Study approach to explore, trial, and reflect on oracy-focused classroom practice

📌 Full details, including aims, structure, time commitment, and sign-up form are available via the link in our bio (or visit: takeyourplace.ac.uk).

✨ Raising attainment, raising aspirations ✨

Last year, we delivered six attainment raising projects alongside our partner universities across the region to support KS3-4 students across four core areas: oracy, literacy, study skills and metacognition:

• Reading Matters (Y7 literacy)
• Make It Count (Y7/8 metacognition)
• Raise Your Words (Y9 oracy)
• Debate Club (Y10 oracy)
• Study Skills (Y10/11)
• Arts Tutoring (Y10/11)

Working with Uni Connect partnerships and organisations including Debate Mate, Speakers Trust and Oracy Cambridge, the projects led to improvements in students’ self-belief, communication and future aspirations. The evaluation shows that explicitly teaching young people how to study effectively and communicate clearly helps them believe they belong — and can succeed.

📊 Full impact and findings report: Take Your Place website (link in bio)
📌 All projects are running again this year, and we are creating materials for all schools to use.

🎉Happy New Year from neaco! 🎉

As the new year begins, our Study Skills Workbook is available online to equip students with strategies for effective study and learning. It includes helpful goal setting and time management strategies as well as useful study methods.

Follow the link to download: https://www.takeyourplace.ac.uk/.../study-skills-workbook/

Wishing everyone a fantastic start to the year ahead!