Year 11 Graduation & Leavers Events

As the school year and exam season officially ended for our delightful Year 11 students on June 19th 2024 – a series of two consecutive celebratory events took place on the morning and evening of Friday June 28th 2024.

Our Year 11 Graduation event was in fact our inaugural Year 11 graduation and first of its kind in this format here at Hatch End. It's safe to say it was huge success on all fronts – with over 75% attendance from our Year 11 cohort arriving on the day, with many of their parents/carers in attendance to witness, made it all truly special and very memorable for myself and other school staff who were in attendance. The idea behind events like this is simply to celebrate all our Year 11 students and the completion of their 5 year GCSE journey. More importantly the event was about the future thinking, the mindset and attitude linked to post-16 education and progression into our school sixth form as well the journey and movement into young adult life and beyond. We had a tailored program that included speeches delivered by myself as well as Mr D Robinson - Assistant Headteacher and Mrs Jeanes our Headteacher. The morning was also supported with music being played by some of our talented Year 9 pupils and with published poems read by the Year 11 students who composed them back in their Year 10 school year. A special touch was added to the event via a keynote speaker (teacher) from the prestigious Eton College – Mrs Rebecca Wine. She spoke very eloquently and vividly about her background, the challenges she faced and being resilient whilst working in the one of the most famous private boarding schools in the country. It was real insight and very inspiring. At the end of this graduation ceremony and once all students had the chance to ‘walk the stage’ and receive an official graduation certificate scroll – we had a photo studio set up in our roundhouse venue where both students and parents/carers had the chance to have a professional style graduation photo with their individual scroll and traditional graduation hat on too!

During the evening of June 28th 2024 our fabulous end of year graduation prom party was held this year at the beautiful DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Borehamwood. Our theme was ‘The Oscars’ and all students and staff invited were encouraged to come in black tie – red carpet attire, no one disappointed!! It was a lovely event that had a professional photographer snapping away as the students and staff walked in and entered the main venue on a gorgeous and very long red carpet. The food buffet was delicious, and the DJ spun tunes all night long based on prior requests from all students. To cap the night off we had an ‘Oscars’ ceremony which including gold Oscars awards being handed out to pre voted winners in categories such as most sporty female/male and smartest female/male. On the night all staff and pupils were asked and encouraged to vote on their prom queen and king for 2024 … it was unanimous with our winners Madalina Gale 11WE and Michael Kumar 11MBE being crowned with a tiara/crown and sash for this coveted award! We had so much fun, and it was a really stunning way to celebrate Year 11 and the end of their GCSE journey.