A message to Year 11

Congratulations Year 11, you made it! For five years you have studied hard at UCC and today is the culmination of those efforts as you collect your GCSE results.

I know you will have experienced the nervous anticipation of opening the envelope before digesting the information on the various examination results papers. I loved watching you all celebrate and congratulate each other. I hope the results you received today open many doors of opportunity for you in the years to come and I would like to wish you all the very best of luck with what you choose to move onto in the next stages of your life; this is certainly a very exciting time for you all.

As we celebrated the GCSE results as a school, I paused for thought on the incredible achievements of UCC students. There were some truly phenomenal achievements and many of you produced some astonishing results. However, I wanted to congratulate everyone and in particular I know that several of you had to overcome some serious adversity throughout this year. The character and resilience that it will have taken to meet these challenges and still pass your GCSEs should not be underestimated and I hope you are very proud of this.

Remember, your results do not define who you are and what you are able to achieve in your life. This is down to your attitude, your mindset and your determination to succeed. At UCC we place as much importance on the way you develop as a person as we do on the qualifications you leave with – given that our school values are respect, honesty and kindness I hope you can take these with you into adulthood and into whatever you apply yourself to.

Finally, I would like to thank you for your contributions to our school over the past five years. I hope you look back fondly on your time at UCC.

All the best,

Mr Solly.