Former students remain part of the Walton family and go on to form our alumni community.
Here you can find out about some of the higher education routes and professions they have entered after leaving sixth form.
Alumni profiles
Chloe Smith – teaching
Chloe Smith is a Walton Academy alumni student, who also completed her Initial Teacher Training at the academy last year. She is currently working at Brookevale Groby School in Melton and we are proud to announce that she is the NQT of the Year Finalist 2021.
“During her time training with us at Walton, Chloe proved herself to be a very conscientious and ambitious trainee. Right from the outset she adopted a reflective approach to her teaching – listening carefully to feedback given to her and taking direct steps to act on the advice given. Halfway through the placement, all schools closed and transferred to remote provision for 3 months, due to COVID. This did not faze Chloe and if anything, she became more proactive, taking the initiative to try out new methods of delivering content and assessing understanding remotely. It was clear from early on in her placement that teaching, as a career choice, was a real passion of hers and over the course of her training year she went from strength to strength – taking every opportunity to improve and develop her knowledge and skills further. No task was ever too much trouble for Chloe and she became a valued member of the history and humanities team. I am confident that she will continue to have a positive impact on the students that she teaches.”
Rebecca Wells, Head of Humanities Faculty
Chloe has made a fantastic start to her teaching career with the enormous contribution she has made to Brookevale Groby’s history teaching team.
Ellen Wilding – studying occupational therapy at York St John University
Bethany Stanley – studying performing arts at the University of Chichester Conservatory
Bethan Stanley left Walton after studying musical theatre at the academy. She took some time out and then came back to Walton as she knew that the post 16 team are more than willing to help our alumni students apply for university, even if they come back after gap years. She was the first in her family to go to university and is now studying at the University of Chichester Conservatory. Bethan is a true success story and we are so proud of her accomplishments so far.
Bethan said: “I’m getting on great down here, everyone is lovely and I’ve finally found my people. We are all crazy musical people and I can’t wait to see what this semester’s musicals are! I’m loving how talented everyone is, it makes it even more exciting and challenging to get parts and gives me a little taste into the industry before I even graduate.
I’ve already performed in two shows since starting Chichester University, one being the ‘Fresher’s Showcase’, where I had a featured solo. The other was the UK premier of A Christmas Carol the Concert. I was very lucky to have obtained a place in the cast. Excitingly, we perform this concert again next Christmas on a five day tour down the south coast.
The contact hours we get are quite a lot and it was a struggle at the start, especially when I was doing two shows on top of all that. Most days I’d be in university from 9-10pm but this all helped me get fitter and healthier and I’ve found that I have a natural talent in tap dancing. I hope everyone at Walton is well, and I can’t wait to kick start semester two!”
