Wellington’s third Speech Day | A proud tradition

As the academic year draws to a close, Speech Day is our time for acknowledging the academic and personal accomplishments of our year 13 leavers while also allowing them to reflect on their time at Wellington. It’s a special day for the College, and particularly for those pupils who enter the stage for the ceremony as schoolchildren and leave it as young adults and OWs (Old Wellingtonians). Thursday 29th May was the third Speech Day since the College opened and, like each year before it, the event proved to be happy, hopeful and poignant – though it was inevitably tinged with sadness as we say goodbye to another group of individuals who have been a significant part of life at Wellington. Both teachers and pupils shared their thoughts on the journey that had led our year 13s through their school years, culminating with the completion of their International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. During the staff speeches we enjoyed wise (and witty!) words of advice and encouragement. Similarly, many of the leavers themselves made insightful, impassioned speeches reflecting on the nature of their academic experiences and challenges, the unique friendships they made along the way, and their hopes for the next exciting stage of their lives. Head of Sixth Form and Director of Pupil Services, Mr McCallum and Mr Shaw, led the opening remarks, congratulating the leavers on their phenomenal success with the IB and university applications, while recognising each pupil with a short personal address.  

"You should all be very proud of yourselves. Over the past two years, you have grappled with the IBDP: the deadlines, the workloads, the IAs, the EEs, all of it, is now done. The exams are over. This is a time when you should feel satisfied and thoroughly looking forward to what comes next. Enjoy it." – Mr McCallum

Then followed a “Life in the Common Room” speech delivered by the Head and Deputy Heads of College, Zoe, Joey and Harvey, as they rather effortlessly painted a picture for the audience of what it has been like for the year 13s to study, learn, chat, relax, cram, panic, unwind, and make plans together over the past two years. Again, they devoted a little time to each of their peers, highlighting their innate qualities as well as the in-jokes and shared a few of the experiences that brought their sixth form common room to life. After a beautiful piano piece from leavers Jenny and Joey, Kevin, a founding pupil and also a leaver, made a heartfelt speech that reflected on the Wellington experience, sketching out his time at Wellington, from the College’s opening day when he had very little confidence in his English abilities, to the day of his departure five years later, where he felt able to address a packed College Theatre audience.

"I want to thank everyone here, my peers and teachers, because I would not have achieved what I have achieved without their support. We are all from different parts of the world and different backgrounds, but we are not isolated by this, instead we are bonded together as a family. Thank you all for being Wellingtonians. The message I’d leave you with, the lesson I’ve learned, is this: fight, so that you won’t regret. You may not always get what you want, but at least you fought for it and in most cases you will be satisfied by the outcome."

Next to speak was Head of Senior School Mr McKee, who had a little advice for our leavers – despite claiming that he has a terrible track record in giving advice!

"The availability of advice has never been greater, the problem is that this often makes things harder for us, not easier… The real challenge is to know who has your best interests at heart and to be brave enough to embrace them. As Polonius advises his son Laertes in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘Those friends thou hast, their adoption tried, grapple them to your soul with hoops of steel.’"

Lastly for the leavers, Head of College Zoe made her fond farewells and ‘thankyous’ to the people who made the year 13s’ time at Wellington such a remarkable journey.

"Even now my speech doesn’t feel complete, because I can’t tell you how hard it is to talk about the people who have become family and a place that has become home. I have learned so much during the past five years at Wellington, but more importantly I have learned so much about the people sitting behind me. Together, we have made many great things happen and it comes from our drive and desire to do better and to do more. I hope that this is an attitude that we take with us into our future lives."

Finally, Wellington Principal Eleanor Prescott gave her address before commencing the ‘passing out’ ceremony, where pupils left the stage with a salute to the Executive Master Gerard MacMahon and started the next phase of their lives as Old Wellingtonians.

"Today, for our leavers, two of Shakespeare’s famous ‘Seven Stages of Man’ are now over. They are infant no longer, schoolgirl or schoolboy no longer. That is why it is worth pausing to acknowledge that while there is a new beginning there is also an ending. Our leavers will scatter, and resettle across the world, such is the nature of an international school and such the success of our leavers that they have achieved offers to some of the best universities in the world. To London, to Edinburgh, Bristol, Beijing, America, Australia, Canada and Europe they will go. While the exact location is still a question mark for some, that they are leaving, and that it will be an adventure, is in no doubt."

We wish congratulations and the very best to the leaving class of 2019, now Old Wellingtonians,  who shall always remain a part of Wellington.  

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