“There are so many decisions I had to make during the Sixth Form and one key reason I feel I am now in the right place was the fact I stayed on at SCHS.”
Lucinda Elliott
Class of 2008
At the time that I was taking my GCSEs, it was fashionable to move schools for the Sixth Form in order to try something different and to meet new people. What many didn´t realise at the time was that once your two final years of school are over that is exactly what you have to do- make new friends, meet new people and start afresh with a completely different lifestyle; be it university, work, or moving away from home. In effect if you move at Sixth Form, you have to face not only the stress of exams, but also the challenge of forming new friendships only to repeat that process a few years later. There are so many decisions I had to make during Sixth Form and the main reason I feel I am now in the right place is the fact that I stayed on at SCHS. The teachers knew me, could give me honest advice, and my friends whom I had known since Beanie Babies were in fashion were there to lighten the work load!
SCHS is a small, familiar community, and that is a valuable thing when everything else seems so alien. The process of filling out UCAS forms and writing personal statements for courses or jobs that you have no real idea you are going to like was helped by the fact we were all doing it together in Year 13, and our teachers had done it a hundred times over.
I chose to go to Bristol University and am now writing this piece from the tropical island of Florianópolis in Brazil. As part of my year abroad studying modern languages I am spending sixth months in a fantastic new environment, speaking a completely different language and making new Brazilian friends. This has been a far bigger step for me than moving to a new Sixth Form college would have been, and I can honestly say that my time at SCHS gave me all the skills for coping with the change. My next stop is Buenos Aires and then back to finish what has been a brilliant degree!
Luci is currently in Brazil studying Journalism as part of a Spanish and Portuguese degree at the University of Bristol.
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