Leavers’ Day was a gloriously sunny experience for our Upper Sixth and their families on Friday 9th May. The afternoon began with a social drinks reception in the Michael Malnick Centre and outside on the terrace, enabling students, parents and staff to mingle and reminisce. The recently established Leighton Park tradition of ‘the last hurrah’; an archway composed of the whole community for the Upper Sixth students to process to Main Hall, was undertaken with much celebration and cheering led by the Head Boy and Head Girl, Zeb and Kimia.
Leavers’ Collect began with an accomplished rendition of ‘Last Goodbye’ by Jeff Buckley with Freddie on the guitar accompanied by Eliza singing, with the gathering in Main Hall being the last performance space for these Sixth Formers and for many more of our talented musicians. Over a third of the orchestra are in the current Upper Sixth cohort; they will be missed next year!
The awards were presented by the Heads of Department with an array of achievements in all areas of school life being celebrated. The Sports Award was presented by Simon Bradbury to Charlotte, a sportswoman who “defines what LP Sport is all about and has shown a remarkable sporting talent and commitment.” Charlotte also picked up the Drama Award for her “amazing enthusiasm, grabbing every opportunity available to her” and looking forward to her Drama degree next year. The Politics Award went to Dominic, off to study international relations at Aberystwyth next year whilst the Joseph Lister Chemistry Prize for excellence went to Lilia with the prize for exhibiting excellent LP learner values in chemistry to Matt. The Duncan Wood Prize in Biology was awarded to Eddie for inspiring others and embodying kindness and friendship, virtues which will serve him well on his Pharmacology course next year. The Paul Dowdell Award for Art for going above and beyond in creativity and for her incredibly well observed work went Mia. The Mary Triddon Award for outstanding contribution to Music was a group award presented to Eliza, Bella, Noah and Freddie with our high commended runners up Laura, Isi, Francesco, Kemianna, Abba and Tom also collecting certificates.
The Travel Scholarships, worth up to £2,000 are one of school’s longest running awards encouraging adventurousness and sustainable travel. The judges this year were amazed by curiosity and ambition of all the applicants this year and presented three prizes. Evie will be exploring the Inca trail in Peru, Alex will be starting at the Arctic Circle and going to Oslo travelling north to south through Norway. Diana will be undertaking a meticulously planned pilgrimage visiting El Camino, a network of ancient pilgrimage routes in Spain, and continuing her travels onwards to Japan.
Two awards, the Old Leightonians Award and the WH Scarborough Award are chosen by Old Leightonians. Following an essay submission responding to the questions, ‘To what extent do you agree with the argument that private education is incompatible with Quaker values’ the judges were pleased that all the students could see both sides of the argument. Marcus was a worthy winner with the WH Scarborough Award going to Anis, the candidate who impressed the judges with his enthusiasm for engineering and helping others.
The Jorge Hortal Award is the most prestigious award presented to Upper Sixth and is given to the best all rounder, a changemaker and a good friend. Old Leightonians, Willow Bradshaw-Murrow and Flick Waldmann (Class of 2024) and Will Goncalves Moreira (Class of 2023) returned to present the award to Noah, an “individual that lift us up and change our perspective on what is important in this life”.
The Collect concluded with moving speeches from the Head, Matthew LS Judd, the current Head Boy and Girl, Zeb and Kimia, and two musical items by the Upper Sixth ensembles, ‘Send in the Clowns’ by Stephen Sondheim and ‘I Wish’ by Stevie Wonder.
We were also pleased to announce the new senior prefect team for 2025-26:
You can see more photos on our online gallery.
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