We don’t want our Sixth Formers to leave Monkton like cheese plants. In their natural habit, these plants look healthy and vigorous, but they are climbers whose trunk has no inherent strength. Take away the supporting tree when they grow up, and they fall flat on their faces.
All too often Sixth Formers look like they are confident and flourishing at school, but the support structures at schools hide a worrying truth - that they have very little strength in their own ‘trunk’.
We want to balance the support we give with a developing independent resourcefulness in our students. Rather than avoid failure at all costs, we seek to help them to learn from their mistakes within the context of a supportive environment, and so help them develop their own resilience.
The amount of freedom each student has around their study periods will be carefully expanded as they progress through the Sixth Form. Subject drop-in sessions encourage an attitude of seeking help rather than passively waiting for help to arrive.
Rather than avoid failure at all costs, we seek to help them to learn from their mistakes within the context of a supportive environment, and so help them develop their own resilience.
In addition, we run a comprehensive Year 12 Induction Programme which covers all the aspects of what will make their Sixth Form years successful at Monkton. When they start to think about life after Monkton, we offer advice and support about the options available, including sessions on CV writing and interview technique.
All these things help to develop our pupils independence, resourcefulness and resilience to enable them to thrive in the real world.
The care we take of our students is well known, and it always features strongly in the feedback we receive from our leavers. But what sets Monkton Sixth Formers apart at university and beyond is their resourcefulness and deep understanding of interdependence rather than just independence.