Farewell to Year 11 2025
Every journey has a destination. Some journeys are circular and end where they started with the comfort of the familiar. Others take you to new places where you are pushed beyond your comfort zone.
Your start at HB was a little like this, removed from the familiarity of your primary school into an environment that you had only seen online and through the eyes of Mr Janes as he toured the school on your behalf behind the lens of a camera.
It wasn't the start we wanted for you, meeting teachers behind face masks and visors making it more difficult for you to adjust, and whilst I don't want to dwell on those times, I do want to acknowledge how hard that must have made it for you.
But you have more than made up for that bumpy start on your journey to Year 11. As
you spend your final few hours in our school uniform, I would like you to reflect on your own personal journey. For some that journey may have been more difficult than for others but I hope that all of you found friends to support you on the way.
But all of you here have stayed on the journey, working to give yourself the very best opportunities for success and success comes in many forms, not just in GCSE certificates.
Your contribution to sports, expressive arts, to leadership has been immense and, in these contributions, you leave a lasting legacy for your school.
I am so proud of the young adults you have become. I have had the privilege of working with many of you, as student hosts and leaders, in student voice discussions,
accompanying you on school trips and in class as your teacher.
I have seen you at your best, sometimes when the worst is happening.
What all those occasions have in common is your resilience, your compassion, your sense of humour, even your undeniable insistence that you were right, and I was wrong!
All of these times are bound together in the history you have created as the Leavers of 2025.
Your journey has been 5 years in the making, and it won't be circular, ending where you started and nor should it be. Because the biggest adventure is about to start. You and only you can determine where it goes next. Your teachers have done their job, they have given you so much more than a bank of knowledge and subject skills, they have given you the confidence and self-assertiveness to take the next step, I know you have and will thank them.
I know that they are a remarkable group of people, so if you haven't yet had time to acknowledge that with those who taught you, supported you, stood by you, please find the time to do so.
