Sixth Form

I am delighted to take up my post at MCS this academic year and consider myself to have landed the best job in education.

Having been an English teacher for sixteen years and spent several years as a boarding-school Housemistress, I have always found the Sixth Form to be an electric time: a time of self-discovery, both emotionally and intellectually; a time of great potential; and a time to grapple safely with the necessary challenges that prepare you for life beyond the school gates.

I attended a local comprehensive school in Berkshire where my favourite subjects were Maths and Chemistry.  It wasn’t until a particularly intuitive English teacher showed me how to plot the language of a Shakespeare play on a graph that I became remotely interested in the subject, going on to read for two degrees and begin doctoral research.  Whilst not everyone would be enamoured by the various iterations of ‘part’ in Twelfth Night, the mathematical connection struck a chord that has never stopped reverberating for me.  This inspired me as a teacher to find similarly enticing links for my pupils, and at MCS it is the ubiquitous encouragement to ‘only connect’ – prose with passion; heart with mind; sciences with humanities; pupil with teacher; friend with friend – that makes the Sixth Form a truly special environment.

It is clear to me that MCS leaves a lasting imprint on everyone, inculcating a warmth and fondness that make me feel very lucky to be here.  I have been regaled with schoolboy tales by my OW husband, so I’ve seen first-hand what an MCS education can do.  And, although the school is very different to when he was educated here, it strikes me as a newcomer that the heart of the place remains unchanged in its humble yet unapologetic joy in academic enquiry, especially in the Sixth Form.

I hope you’ll get a sense of that joy if you visit us and, indeed, experience it fully if you decide to join our wonderful Sixth Form.