Y13 Leavers Day 2025
On Friday, we held celebrated our Year 13 students with a fun-filled Leavers' Day to mark their last day at Sheldon Sixth Form before they enter exams season. This has been an exceptional group of students and we were honoured to lead them in the final years of their schooling as they prepare for higher education, apprenticeships, travel and all the adventure of adulthood. We've never seen a year group make such good use of the Study Centre and have been impressed by the kindness and support they have shown each other throughout their time in Sheldon Sixth Form. We're confident this will be reflected in fantastic results, but more importantly it will be reflected in character of our young people as they head out into the world.
Year 13 was led by Co-Presidents, Rhys and Rufus, who used their year in office to help shape student events and lobbied for better access to revision resources for the entire school. In their leaving speech, they thanked all their classmates for the kindness, friendship and memories that were made over the years. Rufus encouraged his peers to "find something you love and just keep doing it" while Rhys reminded everyone "do anything you want; you are bound by nothing."
Mr Lynch, Headteacher of Sheldon School, reminded students that they are in control now and that change comes from what they put in place. He also shared his Ten Lessons for Life:
- Embrace change
- Make mistakes and learn from them
- Dream big
- Resilience
- Be happy
- Take your time
- Have lots of friends, but don’t be a sheep
- Manners matter
- Look after your body
- Have a lifelong love of learning
Head of Year, Miss Frater, spoke of the privilege she had in working with each student over the year. Her advice to students was to take part in things you love and do it with people your care about. She spoke about how being part of a musical group has been a valuable part of her adult life and encouraged students to find opportunities to be part of activities that bring them closer to other people.
Mr Spiers told the group they have been an inspiration and that he has been impressed by their determination. His parting advice was for students to be kind to everyone, even people they don’t know. As head of Sheldon Sixth Form, Mr Spiers often says he has the best job in the school. “I get to work with young people going through an exiting part of their life,” he said. “You make me laugh every day.”
There was plenty of laughter throughout the day as students participated in a number of events, beginning with a celebration breakfast in their tutor groups. Our science-based tutors made good use of the labs by using the Bunsen burners to cook bacon sandwiches and s’mores. There was a full house in the Study Centre for the quiz, which may have been harder than their upcoming exams. The highlight of Leavers’ Day is always the silly sports day, which includes a hula hoop contest, relay, tug of war and wellie tossing. Aim was not a strong suit in this year group as several wellies flew towards staff, not the field! We ended the morning with ice lollies of the field before returning for the last Year 13 assembly and debut of the legendary Leavers’ Video. Every year the Sixth Form Presidents put together a video to remember their time in Sheldon and this year’s was fantastic. It was creative, wild, sincere and extremely funny. Well done to everyone who helped put it together!
We’d like to wish all of our Year 13 students the best of luck on the exams and beyond. We hope that you will all keep in touch with us as Sheldon alumni and will let us know about all your successes in the future. If you are deferring your UCAS application, please remember to reapply through us next year. We are always here to support you after you’ve left Sheldon Sixth Form.