Joining Ribston in Year 7 was great. Everyone was very welcoming, and we were all going through the same thing, so it was easy to make friends. Some of us already knew each other from the summer school and induction days the school offered, which was really nice as we were already used to being with each other.

The teachers here are very kind, and you can always approach them if you need help with your work. They take the time to sit down with you and explain anything you don’t understand. They also encourage us because they really want us to achieve. One of my favourite subjects is Maths, and we’re always given independent work so we can go at our own pace. When we’re finished, they’ll give us more challenging tasks to work on.

Outside of lessons, there are lots of clubs like music, sports, dance, drama, and computing. I do dance – there are quite a few dance clubs, but I do Street Dance – where we usually work on a piece to perform at one of our school concerts. There are loads of opportunities to perform here throughout the year in drama, dance, and singing, and many of the clubs are run by students. I can see myself potentially leading an acting club at school in the future.

If you ever have any problems at school, you can speak to your Head of Form, who will help you with it. For things like friendship issues, they’ll help you talk to the people involved and resolve it. You can also speak to staff in Wellbeing. I’ve supported my friends through friendship problems, and everything was sorted out really quickly.

I think a lot of people worry when coming into the school because they think that everyone else will already know someone. But actually, there are lots of opportunities to meet people at Ribston. On the first day, you realise that everybody’s a bit anxious, and you’re all going through the same thing, so you just find the people you want to be friends with.

I would definitely recommend coming to Ribston. It’s a very inclusive place, and you can be whoever you want to be. You’re also encouraged in all your subjects to be the best you can be.

 

I joined Ribston to take up the role of Curriculum Lead in Modern Foreign Languages. This involves overseeing the other teachers in the department, making sure everyone is happy with their teaching, and structuring the schemes of learning from Year 7 to Year 13. It’s really rare for problems with students to occur, but I liaise with parents and follow up if anything like that does happen. I also promote MFL across the school, as we run lots of events like trips and competitions.

There are plenty of development opportunities for teachers here, which is great as I want to eventually move into a senior leadership role. Since joining, I’ve received a lot of personalised coaching from the Assistant Head. I also lead a team of 13 staff members to develop a leadership development framework for the school, helping teachers monitor and progress through their own leadership journey. In addition, I’m taking part in the Grammar School Association’s Preparation for Senior Leaders course, which helps you take the step from middle leadership into senior leadership within the grammar school system.

The students are what make Ribston such a fantastic place to work. They’re articulate, confident, and happy. They chat to you in the corridors, hold doors open for you, and it just makes it really easy to be a teacher because they’re keen to work hard and do the right thing.

As teachers, we don’t have to do any duties across the school, such as canteen or bus duty, so we have much more time to focus on our teaching. We can also work from home during our protected planning time, which really helps with things like childcare responsibilities, or if you need to leave school early for any reason.

The leadership team at all levels is really supportive at Ribston. It’s a school where a positive and inquisitive nature is fostered among both students and staff. Every student, and every staff member, wants to strive and challenge themselves. As a grammar school, we naturally have academic strength, but there are so many other opportunities for students across the arts and sport—every student has something they can flourish in outside of the classroom, and it’s great to see them take advantage of that. Ribston deserves its reputation as a fantastic school.

I was very happy at Ribston. Being both academic and creative at school, my experiences at Ribston nurtured those sides of me and ultimately led to me studying Law with German Law at university, and to my career choice as a barrister.

I was part of the music community, so I was very involved with orchestra and choir, doing something with music every night of the week. A standout memory is when I organised a Glee Club singing performance in Sixth Form in front of the school. We dressed up, and I managed to get all the boys involved - which was a very unlikely achievement! It felt like a culmination of all those years of being involved in music since I first stepped into the music rooms at Ribston with my clarinet teacher as a year 7 student. Classical music and being a musician were well-cultivated at the school.

As a Head of House, I also had lots of opportunities for public speaking, which increased my confidence. I organised charity events - and looking back I think that developed the side of me that wanted to help people, which is where I think the instinct to do law ultimately comes from.

I had very good relationships with a lot of the teachers - they had an open-door policy, and my chats with them helped me to figure out what I wanted to do. They cared about our development as individuals, and encouraged us to be independent, so I’m very thankful to them.

Ribston will always have a special place in my heart: I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences at school, I made life-long friends, and that time was fundamental to the person I became. The ethos of the school is to create well-rounded people, who are successful in whatever they choose to do.

As a postgraduate student, I’ve been back to Ribston to give talks about the importance of studying languages and the opportunities it can create because I want students to see that you can go on to do different things in life. If I hadn’t gone on a year abroad, I never would have taken part in an international mooting competition and realised I could be a barrister.