I wrote last week about our Virtual Events and this week has seen our Virtual Sixth Form Open Evening. We have released a series of films and presentations which are available on the school website which we hope will provide a really good insight into what makes Wallingford School Sixth Form so special.

For me, one of the aspects of our Sixth Form of which I am most proud is that it is open to all. If you want to work hard, have high aspirations for yourself and be part of a vibrant Sixth Form community then there is a place here for you. We are a comprehensive school and we have a comprehensive Sixth Form with an exceptionally wide range and variety of courses on offer and that is great.

Our Sixth Form is also about people and our students are simply brilliant. As I write this the Gardening Club are planting bulbs in the Courtyard Garden for the Spring. No one has asked them to do this, they have done it because they want to. They have sourced the bulbs and the plants and the tools and have got on with the job. That’s impressive and pretty special. Equally, I had my fortnightly meeting with our Student Leadership Group yesterday and they talked about the charity they would choose to raise money for this year.  For them it is important that the charity they go for is local and that the impact of the money which our students raise can – at least to an extent – be seen and understood by them; that is mature, reflective and indicative of how they are as a group.

It would be easy to write about the results and the destinations of Wallingford School Sixth Form – the former are outstandingly strong and the latter include Oxford and Cambridge, Russell Group universities and highly competitive courses at other universities, foundation and performance courses, high level apprenticeships – but it is the ethos of our Sixth Form which marks it as special and is the characteristic which we particularly celebrate as a school. That ethos can be represented in film and I hope that the examples above also illustrate what it looks and feels like “in action”.