Alumni Stories
We are proud to celebrate the diverse journeys of our former students since leaving Tring School. From university and apprenticeships to a wide range of careers, our alumni have taken many different paths.
We asked some recent Alumni to share their experiences, the skills they gained at Tring School, and their advice for students considering their next steps.
Charlotte Lilley | Class of '22
What have you been doing since leaving Tring school, and what made you choose this path?
I am a degree apprentice at UBS, within their Wealth Management position. I knew I wanted a corporate career and to gain qualifications, but I didn’t want to spend another 4 years in a classroom setting, I prefer to learn as I go.
What is a typical day or week like for you now?
I am a client account manager, meaning I do all the day to day management of our client’s investment portfolios. This varies hugely each day, but includes making trades, monitoring performance, keeping on top of admin, and helping the investment advisors prep for larger deals.
What skills or experiences did you gain at Tring school that have been most useful to you since leaving?
My time at Tring taught me so many soft skills that I use today. Learning how to juggle revision schedules and stay disciplined during free periods really enhanced my time management skills.
But what really helped was the support of individual teachers who went above and beyond, supporting me emotionally and practically through mock interviews and real encouragement to pursue the path I wanted to.
What advice would you give to a student who is currently thinking about what to do after school?
Don't feel rushed or pressured into any decision - take the time to think about what you really want to do, rather than just doing what you think is expected of you. Talk to the sixth form team and your teachers about your goals, and gather as much advice as you can.
Archie Forde | Class of '25![]()
I now live in Manchester and am a second year English Literature student at University of Manchester.
What have you been doing since leaving Tring school, and what made you choose this path?
I now live in Manchester and am a second year English Literature student at University of Manchester. I have two jobs: I am a freelance journalist and also work behind the bar at a music venue. For fun, I edit my university’s newspaper, play 5 aside football badly, and make music. I enjoyed my time at Tring but never loved living in a small town, so it was a no-brainer to go to university in a city. My teachers at A Level were amazing and really taught me to think outside the box about a range of issues, though. I decided to study English because of my English teachers, and my teachers in Media, Music, and EPQ have given me skills that are relevant in my work, academic, and creative lives. At Manchester you have the option to do free choice modules - I do 2 Music modules a year and 4 Literature ones - and the range of subjects and super-curriculars I discovered at A Level through Tring definitely help me with interdisciplinary study. I’ve since written for newspapers and magazines like The Guardian and The Face and released songs on Spotify that have done over 800,000 streams. The extracurricular opportunities at Tring, like Stag Mag and Swing Band, were invaluable to me, and continue to influence me outside academics.
I don't really know my career path yet. I reckon it’ll be something journalism/creative industries related. I am kind of doing what I wanted to do already with the journalism, and didn’t really wait around for uni to help me with that - it’s probably more the opportunities afforded by the place I’m in that have really helped. I know that’s not the same for everyone - my path is definitely more restricted to humanities students. I’m not really bothered about a masters’ degree unless I can get it fully funded through a scholarship or something because the debt feels a bit crazy, but I would like to do a 2 year postgrad/contract qualification with a newspaper. If not, there’s a 2 year Erasmus scheme masters that has scholarship spaces – which would mean I could spend time in a different country.
What is a typical day or week like for you now?
I don’t have too many contact hours for my degree so I spend most of my time at gigs, writing, or at work. A typical week usually involves travel - I recently went to Leeds to cover the festival. My bar job is very flexible, but I usually work 2 nights a week. I keep an active social life and can be found in the pub a few times in the week/after work with friends. Manchester is a great city for nightlife, too, and I make the most of that.
What skills or experiences did you gain at Tring school that have been most useful to you since leaving?
Academic curiosity for sure - I remember Miss O’Callaghan, who taught me Hamlet, would manage to link the most wild and left-field concepts to the play - from scrying to the vikings to transcendentalism - which really opened my eyes to a lot and prepared me for university study. As I mentioned before, Stag Mag and Swing Band taught me how to be part of a team and work together with people to reach a goal, which was definitely very formative. My A Level classes were quite small, which gave me the opportunity to speak a lot about my subjects, which is very useful in seminars.
What advice would you give to a student who is currently thinking about what to do after school?
Decide with integrity and think with your heart as much as your head. Don’t let friends, parents, or even teachers make your decision for you - if you don’t fancy uni you don’t fancy uni! Post-18 study (or outside of study) is very freeing and formative, and it’s up to you to make the most of your life and push yourself in the right direction. I was quite academic I’d say, but if I got a staff job writing somewhere I would probably not finish my degree, so you can’t predict anything. For university, depending on what you want to do, I’d also say that sense of place can be more important than prestige – consider that.