Sunday Times journalist Hazel Shearing spoke to our students on Monday evening, and it was fantastic to hear from a young professional with not only such a clear vision of what she wanted to do, but also with an interesting and enlightening story as to how she underwent her journey to get there. The purpose of the outside speakers is to provide our students with exposure to exactly this, and to encourage them to seek inspiration from their own role models, in whichever field they choose to adopt them. Whether or not our students wish to follow in the footsteps of Hazel as a journalist is not important, what is more significant is the opportunity to listen to someone so aspirational, and to start to piece together what they can do in their own case to set them on the path to where they want to be. The speaker on Monday evening was very different to Hazel yet the overall aim of the visit was pretty much the same; Dr Caroline Smith from the Natural History Museum spoke eloquently and insightfully to the title ‘Space rocks, rockets and robots – Exploring our Solar System’. Not all of our students will be fascinated or inspired by every talk they hear, but if what somebody has to say particularly resonates with even one or two students then that is absolute great, and the diversity and breadth of subject interests our students are developing suggests that more often than not this is the case!

Sevenoaks School have long been a key supporter of the APP, and it was Sevenoaks who provided all the teaching on Monday morning, even though it was meant to be the first full day of holiday for their staff! We are continually grateful for the schools within the network who encourage their teachers to get involved, and we are continually heartened by those teachers who come back to volunteer their time on residential after residential – there must be something about the programme that they like!

Other activities have included a Classics lesson for each cohort, as well as Mandarin for the year 9 and Politics for the year 10. One of the Classics lessons turned in to a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the actions of the Westborough Baptist Church and the lesson on the 2017 General Election lasted half an hour longer than scheduled, such was the desire of the students to put forward their points of view. It is fantastic to see our students with such strong opinions, willing to debate and discuss with each other, and motivated to think about the problems and issues that are relevant to the modern world. A well-informed, engaged and empowered generation of young people is so important, and we would like to hope our students are getting off to a great start!