Congratulations to every single one of our Year 11’s on making it through these incredibly challenging and tough years. We are delighted with the performances of our students in the first set of external exams since 2019, and look forward to celebrating with these exceptional young people today.
Our students have shown an extraordinary level of resilience and determination throughout the terrible disruptions to their education that began when they were in Year 9. They have demonstrated a fantastic attitude and worked so hard, alongside our phenomenal staff who have helped them throughout this journey.
We are so proud of each and every one of our students. The students who have achieved despite the circumstances they faced. The students who strived to learn at home with limited access to the internet, or with a house full of siblings. The students who lost family members and had to deal with both their loss and not being able to say goodbye. The students who were badly affected by the illness itself, and those who are still impacted by the side effects.
Today, this is what we are celebrating. Not just the grades and huge progress that our students have achieved, but the remarkable stories and the inspirational individuals that show us how exceptional and talented our students, and those around the country and around the world, are. We couldn’t be prouder of them and they deserve all of our praise.
This is why, along with many other schools locally and nationally, we will not be providing any information to the media about overall grade performance or offering comparisons to local and national figures at this time.
Covid has caused enormous disruption to the education of young people around the world. The impact that this has had varies for individual students, families and communities due to circumstances beyond their control or the control of us as a school. This means that a student’s experiences at our school may differ wildly to other schools, even the school next door. Circumstances such as infection rates and periods of isolation of staff and students, and access to resources and facilities for learning during national lockdowns have differed significantly. For us to the use data to compare our ‘performance’ to other local schools or nationwide without such context is a frankly pointless, inappropriate and a potentially damaging exercise. We are hugely ambitious for our students and our school, adopting a mind-set that ‘Better Never Stops’. We will use today’s outcomes to challenge ourselves and aim even higher as we move on using more appropriate methods other than grade comparison.
Thank you as well to our dedicated and passionate staff who have worked so incredibly hard supporting our students. We know that it is not just our classroom staff who have ensured our students’ success. Every single member of staff inside and outside of the classroom has worked tirelessly to provide out students with the best possible learning experience. We are grateful for the support of the families of the Wren, our Governors, our local community and the Excalibur Academies Trust.
We wish all of our students the very best in their next steps of education, many of them with us in our fantastic Sixth Form, where we know that they will grab hold of the opportunities that come their way. That they will flourish, succeed and thrive.
Well Done!
John Salberg
Principal