Dear class of 2023,
We’ve been on a long journey. Many of you started with us in Year 7, which makes this our first Sixth Form Graduation for founding students. And what a success story you are.
Those of us, like myself, who joined the year after or in the years following are grateful to have been adopted and welcomed into this SJIIM blended family.
I know that, for me personally, this year group will always have an incredibly special place in my heart. I latched on when you were in Year 8, and I never really left you all alone.
At some point in the last six years, I have managed to engage in important conversations about the human condition or tense consistency with most of you here as your English teacher. To the two students who have managed me as their teacher for six straight years, I salute you. You’re free now.
I got to know the rest of you outside the classroom as your Head of Year in years 10, 11, and 12. This year, as your Head of Sixth Form, my role has transitioned slightly as I’ve had the pleasure of overseeing all of your academics. As one of you put it, I’ve become the “IB cat collar lady” with my 18 exam keys jingling around my neck, enthusiastically reminding you all to get lined up for your next assessment.
While this new role is certainly less fun in many ways, I have to say that seeing all 23 of you here in your robes, and ready to walk across the stage, is incredibly rewarding, and ALMOST makes those ‘deadline dungeons’ worth it.
And now that you are here, and you’ve made it through, I suppose you expect to hear some sage advice. I don’t have many new things to say after so many years, so I’ll try to touch upon the key lessons I really hope that — even if you don’t remember what autodiegetic narration is in ten years’ time — perhaps you’ll be able to reflect on these nuggets, the first is this:
1. Be careful with your energy, which the IBDP is perhaps designed to teach you, is finite.
Your sleep hygiene is important, even at university, so stop going to bed at disgusting hours. You know who you are. Remember that sleep will always outperform caffeine.
For my perfectionists in the cohort, my fellow Type-As in lifelong recovery…the same advice applies to you, too: not every project, or every person, deserves your energy in the same way. Prioritize what you value, and pour your energy there.
As someone who you all have consistently called an ‘energetic’ teacher in almost every note you’ve written that I’ve kept over the years, I will say this: I feel blessed to have found a career, and a group of people, who I am happy to pour my energy into. I wish you all the same in your future careers, too.
My second piece of advice is this:
2. As with all good writing, in life, too, I want you to avoid the fluff.
In essays, my students know that ‘fluff’ is the filler we use when we aren’t saying anything of substance, and in life, these are the surface level conversations we have to avoid exposing our most authentic selves, or our most genuine needs. My advice is to find the people in your life you can avoid the fluff with. Many of you have found these connections with your peers, who I hope will be your lifelong friends.
While far too many of you have joked about IBDP trauma bonding, it is worth noting the history of what we’ve all gone through together in these crucial years of your adolescent development.
We have made it through the small pains — the deadlines, the sleepless nights, the flipped canoes on camp and the friendship group transitions. But we’ve also made it through the big pains, too. A global pandemic, the stress and pain of university decisions, the loss of loved ones, the big, earth-shattering, pivotal moments in our lives where we have no choice but to seek support from the people around us.
And I feel so grateful that you all had each other, and the people in this room, throughout those moments.
I think it is a huge testament to the parents who have raised you, and who, in their concern for you, have beautifully modelled the way that vulnerability and strength are one and the same, and I will genuinely miss our frequent interactions once you graduate. Thank goodness for younger offspring, as I’m not quite ready to give all of your parents up.
My final nugget is this:
3. Remember to be the cultural architect, and not the cultural assassin.
We started your sixth form experience online, which is not ideal when half of you were joining SJIIM for the first time. While we tried to make Positivity Padlets and breakout room bonding a thing, it was no wonder that when we returned to physical school, the cohort was not immediately cohesive.
We met and discussed the kind of culture we wanted to create within the cohort, and the kind of leaders you wanted to be within the school. You all voted in a Community Committee — a group of humans whose mission it was to bring us together and to lift us up — and, thousands of cupcake celebrations later, I don’t think you all could have picked four better people to lead this charge.
An important lesson we learned that term, which I hope you will apply in your future, is that positive communities are formed with intention. We must actively participate in designing and building the cultures we want to be a part of.
In your time at SJIIM, and as leaders of this school, you have become brilliant cultural architects. I see the friendships you have built with one another, and they are truly beautiful.
I have watched the way you have modelled to younger students how to be ambitious AND inclusive, successful AND compassionate, outstanding students who not only model excellence through their academic achievements, but in their service to others.
Wherever you go, I know you will be successful, because you will bring these values with you as you become the cultural architects in your next phase of life.
Class of 2023, I thank you for your service to St Joseph’s. You will be sorely missed.
Congratulations,
Ms. Cole
Head of Sixth Form