Click the link to view the full version: WASCZ | A Welcome Letter from the Executive Headmaster
Dear Students and Parents,
It is always wonderful to begin a new academic year. There is a particular sense of energy around the campus this week as colleagues prepare classrooms, boarding houses and activities, and as we look forward to welcoming both returning pupils and the many new families joining our community. We hope that each of you will begin this new journey with confidence, curiosity and enthusiasm, ready to embrace the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
A Fresh Start
This year does feel like an important new beginning for WASCZ.
There has been considerable change over recent months, with our teaching buildings and boarding houses refreshed and a number of new members of staff joining our community. These changes bring renewed confidence, continued momentum and greater ambition for the year ahead.
Before the start of term, we have welcomed a group of excellent educators from around the world. At the same time, our staff have spent considerable time together preparing for the year ahead, looking carefully at our priorities and at how we can provide an increasingly consistent, coherent and high-quality learning experience for every pupil across the school. Our staff training before the start of term has focused on teaching quality, campus safety, pupils’ physical and emotional wellbeing, and holistic pastoral care. We hope that, through this thorough preparation, we are ready to welcome every pupil and provide the support they need to learn, grow and thrive throughout the year.
Much of what matters most in education is, of course, remarkably straightforward: excellent teaching; high expectations; strong relationships; good behaviour; hard work; kindness; and adults who know, support and challenge the children in their care. Those things will remain at the heart of what we do.
Academic Ambition
We begin the year with much to celebrate as our examination results this summer contained some excellent individual and departmental performances. As a result, our graduating pupils secured offers and places at outstanding universities around the world. Particularly pleasing is that our pupils have now gained access across all five of the UK’s G5 universities, a considerable achievement and one which reflects the aspirations of our pupils and the expertise and commitment of the colleagues who support them.
Academic success matters. We make no apology for setting high standards or for wanting pupils to achieve excellent examination results. But a genuinely excellent education must also prepare young people for considerably more than the next set of examinations.
In the new academic year, our Deputy Head Academic, Ms Charlotte Allen, will continue to drive the development of academic quality across the school. We will introduce a more systematic approach to tracking and evaluating academic progress, enabling us to understand each pupil’s learning journey and respond to their needs in a timely way. Guided by the high standards of our sister school, Wycombe Abbey UK, and the wider Wycombe Abbey Education framework, we will continue to refine our curriculum planning and teaching practice, strengthen project-based learning, and deepen our iSTEAM (Innovation, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) approach to create more opportunities for pupils to explore across disciplines and address real-world challenges.
Life Beyond the Classroom
Education here must also be broad to enable the all-round development of our pupils. We want every child to find something here at which they can excel, something they simply love doing, and preferably more than one of each.
This year, our Extra-curricular Activities (ECA) programme will continue to expand, with opportunities across STEM, robotics, coding, engineering and design technology, sport, music, drama, art and literature. New activities, including molecular science, climbing and laser shooting, will provide pupils with an even broader range of opportunities to explore their interests and develop new skills.
This year we will build further upon a broad and purposeful programme of sport, music, drama, activities, trips, service and enrichment. These experiences beyond the classroom will help pupils discover their interests, develop their strengths and build resilience, while also developing confidence, a sense of responsibility and a strong spirit of teamwork.
Preparing Pupils for Their Future
The world our pupils will enter is changing extraordinarily quickly. Artificial intelligence and new technologies will alter the landscape of universities and professions we currently know.
Over the coming years, we will make thoughtful use of Al and new technology where it genuinely improves learning. But we will also hold fast to the things that matter just as much: good judgement, curiosity, character, and the ability to think independently. That is part of what I mean when I talk about future-proofing education. We must give pupils the knowledge and academic foundations they need today, whilst developing the habits and capabilities they will need tomorrow.
Our international character is equally important. In the new academic year, we will welcome pupils from nearly 40 countries and regions, with international pupils making up almost 20% of our school community. This rich diversity of cultures creates an authentic and vibrant international environment in which pupils can learn from and engage with one another. Our pupils are growing up in China but preparing for opportunities across the world. Their education should therefore enable them to move confidently between languages, cultures and ideas, and to understand perspectives beyond their own. It is one of the great strengths of our community and something we intend to develop further.
Working Together
Strong schools depend upon strong relationships between home and school, and those relationships depend upon trust. We will not always see every matter in precisely the same way and, in a large and busy community, there will inevitably be occasions when questions or concerns arise. What matters is that we can discuss them openly, respectfully and constructively, keeping the interests of the child at the centre of the conversation.
Please continue to use the Wycombe Abbey School App as the principal source of school information. Tutors will provide weekly updates on pupils’ progress and wellbeing, while important notices will be shared through the App and by the Liaison Officer. Our methods and approaches will continue to evolve but our purpose will not; to give every pupil the education, care, confidence and opportunities they need to flourish.
The Year Ahead
There is a great deal to look forward to in the coming months: an even stronger academic pathway, a richer programme of extra-curricular activities, an enhanced environment for learning and living, and an increasingly diverse international community.
We have an extraordinarily talented group of young people, a committed staff body, and an opportunity to build something very special together. Our immediate priority is to deliver the fundamentals of an excellent education exceptionally well. At the same time, we must have the confidence to look outward and forward, ensuring that the education our pupils receive is genuinely international and equips them for a world that will continue to change.
Welcome to the WASCZ family. Let us begin this new chapter together and build an exceptional future.
With very best wishes,
Matthew Jamieson
WASCZ Executive Headmaster
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