KINGSWOOD ASSOCIATION NEWS 2020-21 ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
KINGSWOOD LEAVERS 2020 The Year of the Pandemic ELLA MCLEOD
School House
For any Kingswood student, the last few weeks of your final term are iconic. Whether it is the excitement of muck up day, the emotional parade of leavers at the end of final assembly, photos from the Leavers' Ball, or rumours passed down from older siblings about the year group holiday. As a younger pupil looking on, it passes you by that some of the Upper Sixth walking across that stage are leaving a community they have been a part of since they were three years old. Although these events are about having fun (and trying to get a one-up on the previous year), they are really a celebration of your time at Kingswood.
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...although we have now left Kingswood physically, the community spirit is something we always carry with us.
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Like most things this year, our leavers' celebrations could not be what we had imagined. However, if memorable is what you are going for, we certainly achieved that. I vividly remember crowding into Study 50 to watch the education secretary announce that exams were cancelled. There were mixed emotions to say the least. On one hand, we didn’t have to sit exams, however on the other, and much more dominant, was the uncertainty of our grades and the feeling of being in limbo with the goal we had focused on
for two years having disappeared. In the following months, we had the welcome distractions of full-time lessons, an online exam week and then a diverse enrichment program along with plenty of lockdown challenges and a heatwave to enjoy. In many ways we were lucky. In hindsight, not being able to take our exams was not the worst thing to happen, and the easing of lockdown came just in time for small outdoor tutor group meetings on what would have been our last day as School. We were also the only year group to have an online Leavers' Service and Final Assembly, virtual speeches and House Entertainment. For School House this was a DIY stilton and port toast and the traditional kissing of "Bulf the frog" over a Microsoft Teams meeting. However, I don’t think my brothers were as impressed when they were woken up on their first day of holiday to watch me leave school from the living room sofa, 8
wearing my brother's leavers tie as I had already spilled breakfast down my own. Now as we approach a year on, I am sure many of us are not where we thought we would be. Our year is as diverse as any with a real mix of leavers destinations. One of the aims of Kingswood is to prepare you for the next steps, an impossible job under this past year’s circumstances. However, I like to think that the resilience and good friendships nurtured in our time there, have stood us in a much better stead than otherwise. For me, the countless video calls and a lifetime's worth of quizzes with friends are the highlight of my week. Maybe it’s the lack of human contact but even the seemingly small things, like receiving a check-in text, or running into someone in your weekly food shop, is a reminder that although we have now left Kingswood physically, the community spirit is something we always carry with us.
