As part of our bespoke PULSE (Personal Understanding, Learning Skills and Enrichment) programme, our Year 12s have the privilege of a lecture featuring a different guest speaker each week. This is a great opportunity for our pupils to experience and hear about new things which they wouldn’t necessarily get in the classroom.
The first speaker we had come in to talk to our Year 12s was a very brave man called Fran Sandham, who took on the challenge of a lifetime by walking the width of Africa; from the Atlantic on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast to the Indian Ocean near Zanzibar in east Africa. Fran was the first person to complete crossing Africa solo, entirely on foot. This adventure took him just under a year to complete, meeting some amazing people along the way and getting fully acquainted with the culture and cuisine. He wrote a book on his experiences called Traversa; having heard just some his stories from the talk, it is clear this would be a gripping read.
For our second speaker we welcomed polar explorer and author Alex Hibbert who gave the Year 12s a lot of inspiration by saying "If you have a passion for something that may not seem like it can be a job, you can make it one if you are passionate enough." This was such an amazing life tip, showing that if you don’t choose to take a traditional method of employment, you can always make your passion a career. It is always important to love what you do and Alex definitely has a love and care for what he does. Alex has been on dozens of trips to the Arctic, although not every trip has gone smoothly and the pupils heard how on one occasion he and his team made the best out of a bad situation. The night before him and the team were meant to start walking across the ‘ice highway’, it got swooped away into the ocean so they didn’t have a safe route to take. At this point they had two choices, ether go home or adapt, which is exactly what they did. Rather than reaching their intended destination they acquired some sled dogs from their base camp and planned a new journey looking round and researching the area .
In the third week of PULSE lectures, we welcomed Asher Majeed who is the founder of the NexGen Online Academy, the first online personal development academy for teenagers. Asher, a former Shiplake pupil who left in 2008, has dedicated his adult life to bettering the current youth for a better tomorrow. He feels strongly that potential is unlimited; therefore, expectation should also be high. This is the first belief he aims to instil into the youth: that there is no limit to what you can achieve.
The following week’s lecture took a slight twist as the students played a game of ‘Guilty or not guilty of theft?’ This was run by Mrs Higgins, Director of Learning Development and Gilson Housemaster. The Lecture Theatre was set up for 12 ‘jurors’ to sit at the front facing the rest of the pupils. To start proceedings, Mrs Higgins outlined the law in regards to theft so that pupils had an idea of the things to look out for. Pupils took turns to be jurors and were given scenarios where they had to deem the offender guilty or not guilty of theft. The scenarios given where things which had actually happened but the names where changed to teachers of Shiplake. The pupils were shocked at some of the verdicts! All the pupils engaged really well with the exercise and were clearly enjoying themselves.
For the fifth PULSE lecture in the series, we welcomed Antosh Wojcik, a modern day poet who states that “poems are a good way to connect and to understand your feelings within yourself and understand loved ones.” He showed our pupils how he comes up with his poems by making analogies to feelings that he, or the people he is writing about, is feeling. He got the pupils to pretend they were holding a salmon and give it a feeling, for example, it could have been sad, so it was now a ‘Sad Salmon’. With this they had to the imagine how it weighted, looked, felt, tasted and anything about the salmon they could think of, and then liken it to other things which relate to those specific things then relate it to a life experience you’ve had and then put it all together and you’ve got a poem.
The last speaker to talk to our pupils before breaking up for half term was from one of our own teachers, Mr Woolner, who gave a talk about the philosophy of superheroes, specifically focusing on Bruce Banner and the green man he turns in to, also known as ‘The Hulk’. Mr Woolner posed the question ‘is Bruce Banner responsible for the things The Hulk does? Given they are the same person but with very different external features and personality traits, is that enough not to be liable for the Hulk’s actions? It was a great debate in the Lecture Theatre on why the pupils thought they were different but Mr Woolner goes on to explain Bruce is liable.
Thank you to all the amazing and inspirational speakers who have come in to talk to our Year 12s. It has been an amazing first half to this term’s PULSE lectures and we are looking forward to the speakers we have lined up after half term.
