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For international pupils who are 15-17 years old, the Pre-A Level Development Year (DY) is ideal if you wish to study at A Level, but may not yet be ready due to your level of English or subject knowledge – and you wish to improve both before entering Year 12. The programme has approximately 25 pupils, who are from all over the world – Germany, Spain, Belarus, China, Latvia, Russia and Hong Kong – to name a few.
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The Development Year programme has been running at Wycliffe for nearly 20 years. With our deep-rooted experience and expertise to make it work effectively (especially through our excellence in teaching English to non-native speakers), Wycliffe’s Development Year programme remains one of the best in the UK.
Development Year pupils have around 30-34 lessons per week of 45 minutes each. Your timetable is set according to prior knowledge and aptitude, study and career plans (including home country requirements), and your preferences. The programme is designed in such a way so that some subjects lead to GCSE, IGCSE or EAL exams and some are non-examined. DY pupils normally take at least five GCSEs, including one in your own mother tongue and an English IGCSE.
Wycliffe is a UK day and boarding school and pupils on the Development Year will be assigned to a House where most pupils are from the UK. You share a boarding room with a pupil who is not from your own country, so the language spoken is English. The Development Year pupils go on trips, attend the Careers programme and Life Skills programme, take part in sport and extra-curricular and access our superb Learning Support Department if they need to.
Most of the pupils in the Development Year stay to take their A Levels and BTECs at Wycliffe. Every year a number of pupils in the Development Year will apply for, and be awarded, a Sixth Form Scholarship at Wycliffe in one.
