Our School Values – Mutual Respect

12 November 2025 - All

It is sometimes easy in the busy day-to-day life of a full boarding School to overlook the need to reflect on the unseen elements that make a community such as ours such a special place. Our School Values are at the very heart of Wycombe Abbey: they ensure that the holistic education provided remains true to the vision of our Founder, Dame Frances Dove, and provides pupils and staff with a common language.  

Trust, encouragement and mutual respect were the three values that Dame Frances Dove built Wycombe Abbey around, and it is mutual respect that I see demonstrated most regularly within Wycombe’s walls. I find an enormous amount of joy found walking around the corridors and listening to the conversations that are taking place. I hear pupils talking with one another about common topics of interest, staff walking together immersed in conversation, and pupils and staff sat with one another discussing a recent piece of work. Whilst these interactions seem different superficially, they are all rooted within mutual respect. For teachers, we want to make sure that we give the best of ourselves to our pupils because we respect the dedication, passion and enthusiasm they bring to each lesson, especially the dreaded 4:00pm lesson on a rainy Thursday afternoon! It is mutual respect that allows members of our community to feel safe to voice vulnerabilities, to question “the Wycombe way”, or to step outside their comfort zone. They do so unafraid of any potential negativity because they know that they are respected as an individual, and that is something that I think is so very special about Wycombe Abbey. 

Mrs Vicky Fawkes

Deputy Head (Pastoral)