A head teacher has urged his students to ‘chase that trophy’ as they aim for national success in a new GCSE competition.

The Garibaldi School in Forest Town beat more than 115 others in regional rounds to make it to the Grand Finals in the GSCE Pod Games.

James Aldred, head of school, said: “Well done on a simply fantastic achievement. Now let’s go and chase that trophy.”

GCSE Pod is a web-based platform offering educational resources to all students, including thousands of short videos covering every topic and course available. There are also helpful multiple choice-style questions called  ‘Check and Challenge’. 

It has been shown that, with regular use of the GCSE Pod platform, students can perform an entire grade higher per subject than non-users.

Over the Easter break almost 1,500 Pods were watched, mainly by the school’s Year 11s. That lifted Garibaldi into first place during the Grand Final stage of the competition. 

The competition ends on 1st July and, so far, there are several students who have watched more than 1,000 Pods each.

James added: “This is an incredible achievement. It has been wonderful to achieve such success on this new platform.

“We hope our students continue to keep ‘podding’ as it will help achieve higher standards in all lessons. 

“Pupils can support us by downloading the GCSE Pod app on their phone and keep logging in and watching those ever-helpful Pods. 

“The majority of videos are under five minutes long, so it’s super easy to watch a few each week, especially on topics you want to revise up on. 

“Just a friendly reminder that every student has an account and if anyone runs into difficulties, please do not hesitate to ask for help off any member of staff.”

Pictured, from left, are Alex Burrows, Lehana Norman, Temiloluwa Egberongbe and Kieran Thompson — the school’s top four GCSE Pod users who together have contributed to more than 8,500 watched Pods.