Meet Rosalind

Upper Sixth student

I’ve been here for 5 years and have been a weekly boarder since the beginning of Sixth Form. Sidcot has a really friendly atmosphere and I have many friends in younger years, which is different to other bigger schools. This is a nice, small community and at school it’s important to be able to make friends easily.

My A2 subjects are Maths, Biology, Chemistry and French. At Sidcot you get to know the teachers well and can talk to them - ask them questions without being made to feel stupid if you don’t understand something.

My dad is a Quaker, so from a young age I went to Quaker meetings.  Initially I didn’t really appreciate the silence in meeting for worship. But now I’ve begun to appreciate the silence - it’s a time to think. The Quaker ethos makes Sidcot feel friendlier, where students are more equal with the teachers. A really good time of day here is lunchtime when you get to sit down with all your friends to eat. In the refectory there’s a great atmosphere - always.  

There is a School Council with representatives from each tutor group, who take along ideas on how to improve the school; that way the students have a say in how the school runs and it is really effective. A teacher oversees the Council’s running, with a student chairman. They relay Council issues to senior members of staff and the housekeeper, so that staff can act on them. Information is also relayed back to the students, so that they know what’s going on. A lot of changes have been made through the School Council, especially with the food, which is now very healthy.

I really like the fact that Sidcot is a multicultural school - there are something like 25 nationalities at the school, so you do definitely get to know people from all around the world.
During the year we have some great parties. There’s the Christmas Dance, which is for the whole school and the Valentine Dance. We have a Staff/Sixth Form party – with a nice meal and then entertainment from the students and the staff. It brings the staff and students together. There are also pool parties with the big inflatable and the Leaver’s Ball, the big Sixth Form summer event.

In the evenings lots of day pupils stay on until 6.30pm and have supper with us. After supper I go back to the house and have 2nd prep for an hour. Then there are activities – mostly in the sports hall, the swimming pool’s open and there’s football and basketball. Often there’s something going on in the Art Dept like Life Drawing and Sixth Formers can go down to the village for a meal if they wish.

The Sixth Form has been really fun; I’m very glad I stayed. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave but just thought I should broaden my friendship groups and go to a bigger school. By staying for the Sixth Form at Sidcot, I’ve made a lot of new friends anyway. I feel more comfortable with myself and it’s allowed me to grow up and know myself better. After Sidcot, I hope to go to Cambridge to study Natural Sciences.

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