Old Woodbridgians Play an Important Part in Students’ Lives
Our OW community supports the School and our students in various ways, providing a variety of opportunities, from work experience and talking to students at various events, to taking part in activities and generally supporting and encouraging them and each other in so many ways.
Recently, Year 13’s Iwan was lucky enough to take part in work experience with the help of one of those OWs, Tom Clarke. This opportunity is a perfect example of how our OWs work together with and support our students in School. Iwan shared,
“During the summer, I was honoured to be given the opportunity to visit Faculty AI in Old Street, London, where I was able to experience Artificial Intelligence up front and in real life situations. Over the course of the week, I had the privilege to shadow experts in their fields, diving into the benefits that AI and machine learning can hold in businesses, as well as undertaking some of the basic tasks that professionals may encounter in their everyday lives.”
He continued,
“Although the level of work was beyond anything I had ever faced, I was intrigued and reassured by all at Faculty AI, due to their laid-back yet professional approach to work life. I am extremely grateful to Mr Richardson, who helped to put me in contact with Tom Clarke at Faculty AI (an Old Woodbridgian), and of course to Mr Clarke himself for helping me to certify that I would like to take a career path in this direction.”
Tom recently came into School and spoke to Year 12 students about his firm, talking about the diversity of where and how AI is used, particularly relevant as this generation no doubt will be using it more in their day-to-day life as they embark on further studies and careers.
Meanwhile, there’s also been a chance meeting of two of our Woodbridge alumni, namely Hon Wah Liu and James Cleland-Smith, who left School and went on to become airline pilots. Hon shared,
“I was a student at Woodbridge from 2008 to 2014. Since then, I pursued higher education and attended Flight School, eventually joining easyJet as a First Officer. Before I started at easyJet, Mr. Stephen Cottrell, former Head of Physics, and Ms. Gill, Head of Geography, mentioned that I should introduce myself to Captain James Cleland-Smith if I ever had the chance, as he was also a former Woodbridge student. James is now a training Captain, with a busy schedule full of duties in the simulator center and training new cadet pilots, making it difficult to coordinate a flight together.”
He continued,
“However, after two and a half years at easyJet, I finally had the pleasure of meeting him during an aircraft turnaround crew change. Although James left Woodbridge in 1996, when I was less than a year old, we found we had so much to talk about, and it was a great moment of connection.”
And just last week, when Woodbridge celebrated 50 years of girls at the School, seeing the return of many OW ladies both past and present, we were honoured to have Dr Coco Newton in School once again, talking to and inspiring our young students. Returning after speaking at our Speech Day last term, she spoke to our students from Years 10 to13 about her career since leave Woodbridge. Coco’s journey to her current career was not straight forward but it was interesting, challenging and from what she told us extremely exciting! It was wonderful to see the students so engaged and enthralled by her story. The biggest takeaway for our students being that your career is not one thing set in stone, but instead a series of stepping stones you take until you find that one thing engages you the most!
Thank you to these, and all of our OWs that take time to visit our School, see and spend time with our students, and offer them the chance to experience their world in many different ways. A hugely important part of our School community, we’re extremely grateful to them all.
