Congratulations to Old Westbournian Fin Sutcliffe, who is a prefect and Head Boy of Lancing College.
Fin was a Patrol Leader (house captain) in 2020 at Westbourne House and he has continued to show great leadership skills in his senior school in his first two terms as one of the four Heads. Extraordinarily, both Fin and his older sister Poppy have held the position of head boy/girl at Lancing College!
“Westbourne House laid the foundations for both my two and gave them the confidence to go on and achieve. The leadership opportunities at Westbourne and the chance every pupil has to stand up in front of their peers and talk, act, read, debate, play music, sing in every year group, means that by the time they leave Westbourne they are confident in their abilities and take challenges in their stride."
Pippa Sutcliffe, proud mum and former Head of English
“Westbourne House stood both Fin and Poppy in good stead to become leaders in their next school and I’m sure that is the same for so many other Old Westbournians. As parents we are very proud and very grateful.”
Fin said: “At Westbourne House I learnt how to relate to and lead younger pupils in my role as Patrol leader. The Patrols help you to socialise and get to know pupils across all year groups and you realise very quickly when you are in Year 8, they all look up to you. It makes you understand that you are a role model to the younger years as when you were in the lower years you also looked up to the Year 8s."
“I felt very well prepared for Lancing. Academically I was ahead of the other prep schools, socially I felt able to communicate effectively with teachers as well as relate to my peers. In addition to this, the sport at Westbourne was of a high standard and we competed against other high-level schools. This gave me the confidence to try out all the sports at Lancing. Westbourne taught me to be quietly confident and enabled me to be accomplished in a range of different areas: drama, music, sport and academics. This also gave me the motivation to continue in all these areas at Lancing."
Fin Sutcliffe
“My favourite Westbourne memory is the South Africa trip. The cricket was amazing, and all the other activities were great fun. We were all away from home which united us and we instantly all became closer and even better friends. I felt very privileged to have had this opportunity,” Fin added.