Goodbye to our Year 11 and Year 13 Students
A few words from our students as they reach the end of Year 11 and Year 13:
My experience has been both a rollercoaster of the highest highs and the lowest lows. It has caused me love and challenge and whole variety of feelings. Despite the stress, secondary school at Abbeywood has been the best experience of my life. I arrived as an innocent and premature 11-year-old girl and through the years have developed into a 16-year-old young woman with a voice and a passion. As every secondary school experience has, it has had tribes and tribulations, but Abbeywood was different. It has moulded me into the person I am today. Abbeywood has not only allowed me to explore avenues and pathways of futures I could aspire for but given the encouragement and support I have needed to reach my dreams I never knew I had.
Abbeywood was not all about the education and the work - but the people. The people that matter. Through the years I’ve had a multitude of relationships that have each taught me something different. From friendships to teachers, the characteristics of every individual are indelible. I’ve built my mosaic of identity around those people I have met at Abbeywood. The people that have moulded and shaped me into who I am. Who fell in love with literature and gained the place of a mum in my friend group. Who is passionate yet gentle. Who is stubborn yet affectionate. From year 7 to year 11 I have been etched by the unconscious assembly of characteristics from a plethora of people. That is why my secondary school experience has been the most unforgettable time of my life – because it made me who I am. I don’t know what I will be doing in 10- or 30-years’ time, but I do know for sure that my secondary school experience with Abbeywood will have been the best 5 years of my life because of the identities that have surrounded me and taught me how to live that mean I can continue to use my voice for better. 5 years has been quick, but those 5 years have created a lifetime of moments that will dwell with me forever. Teaching me when I least expect it.
Grace Crompton, Year 11
We wish them all well and look forward to welcoming lots of students back in Post 16 in September!
A message from our Year 13
From all of the Student Leadership Team here at Abbeywood, we can’t believe our time has come to an end! We remember being told in Year 7 how quickly these seven years would go and not really believing it, and now here we are preparing to go to university and the next stages in our lives.
Abbeywood has been so crucial in our development reaching this point, not just academically but in confidence, in mental health support, in countless opportunities that have got us to where we are! Trips abroad, enrichment weeks, theatre and sport events - to say we are leaving with enriched experiences and memories that will stick for a lifetime is an understatement.
There’s a reason staying on at ACS for Post 16 was not a question for most of us; the teachers are the real MVPs! Although perhaps a slightly disrupted and lockdown-galore sixth form experience, it goes without saying that all of us have absolutely loved every second. And, when times did get a bit tougher, we knew there were countless members of staff available who’d happily support us. To represent the Post 16 as a Student Leadership Team has been an honour and honestly just the most fun! Our school means so much to us and we’re sorry to leave such a supportive, friendly, inclusive and cheerful community behind.
Wishing all of our Post 16 Year 13 students good luck for their futures - you’ve been great!
