What is Friends’ Sixth Form like?
It is often said that the best part of going into a sixth form is that you can leave behind all the subjects you don’t like and stick to those that you enjoy the most, as well as starting new subjects that weren’t available before. Reducing a pile of nine to twelve subjects down to just four suits most of us and allows you to explore what you enjoy in greater detail. You are also past the point of having to be school and you also have some proof of your ability in terms of the GCSEs you have taken and passed.
Friends’ offers all this in the same way as do other sixth forms. What we offer are the advantages of size. Small size. Try finding a small sixth form nowadays. It’s like trying to find a thatched roof cottage in the middle of grey, flat roofed factories of learning in which you can be processed and despatched. What our sixth formers want to enjoy is the experience of being known by others and of knowing those same others. They like being a someone, not a component; a name not a number. What they then do both in the classroom and between and after lessons is up to them: you live your life within the parameters the school lays down.
This is one reason why we have kept, and continue to keep, the 6i and 6ii labels for the sixth form years. Although you are part of a larger school body, you are a distinct and important presence within it. Thus the Sixth Form = 6i + 6ii.
The sixth form is the best part of school so we want you to enjoy the process of learning about yourself as well as the subjects you are studying. We prepare you for university not by creating a fear of failure or by teaching survival skills needed in a harsh competitive environment, but by being more justly confident of who you are and what you can do. We don’t call it stretching, but enabling you to flourish. Life is a pleasure to be enjoyed rather than a punishment for being born. As a Quaker school, we want you to learn how to live with others where each is valued and appreciated.
What makes us different?
Friends’ Sixth Form is…
…a small community of scholars.
Small is beautiful’ is an opinion not a truth, but it is a view which we hold. To work, discuss, think and write does not require the presence of hundreds of people at one’s elbow. Within the confines of the sixth form, it is quite possible to have a highly productive educational experience with class sizes well below current educational norms. Our classes are mostly run like tutorials, allowing a high degree of interaction between student and students, student and teacher and this is certainly better as an educational experience for everyone.
Quaker education has always emphasised the need, to at least the benefit, of belonging. This is not a factory trading in qualifications but a community where experiences are mutual and shared, not just by the scholars but by the adults also.
…proud if its liberal tradition
Education is about the whole person and what that person experiences. The A level programme has recently been substantially reworked in order to recreate breadth, or at least to allow it.
We know that physical exercise and the experience of participating in team sports is of value to the intellect as well as to the body and that is why we continue to require it, even while other schools regard exercise as either an optional extra or irrelevant. Friends’ School has one of the best campuses in Essex for outside sport and it would be silly to ignore that. We are not prescriptive as to what activities are chosen, but physical exercise twice a week is a required and compulsory part of our curriculum.
…Quaker
Several books have been written on this and it is a fundamental part of the ethos of the School, without not only would the school be different: it wouldn’t exist! The influence is pervasive though uneven, more felt than seen. There is a daily Assembly which lasts ten minutes or so and incorporates a short periods of silence, the proper medium for Quaker worship. Quakerism is a Christian religion and is one of the most tolerant and accepting of all the forms of mainstream Christianity. There are no priests and no doctrinal creed. There are elders who advise and guide and there are books of ideas and suggestions, but nothing is demanded. It is expected that any sixth former should be at least tolerant of Quaker principles and practices and allow others the right to worship as they may choose.
…an international environment
Most of the students in the sixth form are form various parts of the United Kingdom, but we attract students from a wide range of additional countries which we believe provides a special and better atmosphere. It is harder for nationalist prejudices to survive when there are many different nationals studying side by side. Some students come from other European nations for a term or two. Others come here for their GCSE and A level education before proceeding to a British University. Some come here for the A level programme before returning to their own country. There are other variations in addition of these, but all provide the cultural and intellectual milieu which we hope our students will wish to find again at their choice of university.
…co-educational
For most students this is simply common sense. It is what happens throughout the country and the European continent. We are proud that Friends’ has always been co-educational even when most schools were not. Growing up without having the other sex around is like having arts without science, sun without rain, laughter without tears. It can happen, but it’s not life lived naturally.
…where you can choose your own personal tutor
In addition to your form teacher with whom you meet twice a day for registration, administration and communication, you will have the opportunity to choose a personal tutor who will meet with you regularly to talk about your academic progress and any problems you encounter. Each tutor will normally have only two or three tutees in each year, which ensures an exceptional degree of counselling and monitoring.
