Around 80 ambitious Sixth Form students from eight Bedford Borough schools gathered in our Erskine May Hall on Wednesday 5 October for the fourth annual Ready2Lead? Conference.
The exciting and inspiring leadership programme, which is now in its fourth year (its second year was held during covid and the programme was adapted for online delivery), aims to help young people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to lead. To help ensure the content was kept relevant and fit for young leaders in today’s world, the programme was designed by a planning team formed of some of the students themselves, along with their teachers.
At its heart, the conference is a collaboration between the schools in Bedford Borough, with 12 schools (and over 300 students) involved since it started in 2019. The schools involved in this year’s conference were Biddenham, Mark Rutherford, Wixams Academy, Kempston Academy, Bedford Academy, Bedford Girls’ School, Bedford Modern and ourselves.
Founder of the programme is Bedford School’s Mr Simon Everitt who told us, “Over the last four years of Ready2Lead? it has been inspiring to see students from different cultures, faiths, schools and backgrounds learning to appreciate both themselves and one another. Together we are helping our delegates to see that they can make their own unique and positive impact in the world around them.”
After introductions, the conference kicked off with an inspiring talk from Old Bedfordian Harry Beard (13-18), who helped students to think innovatively about the positive impact they can make on the world around them.
The students were then asked to reflect upon what they had just heard and ask themselves how this will challenge them to live an extraordinary life and how they might make a difference to something that matters to them, whether that be on a local or global scale.
Lower Sixth Former Farzanuk Chowdhury said, “I came across the program through an assembly in school and through the Sixth Form joining booklet and was keen on developing my leadership skills. The talks from the two guest speakers were very insightful; I learnt the importance of vision and scalability and how that builds a better leader.”
Students enjoyed, as well as learnt, the importance of connections over a networking lunch before they heard from the second keynote speaker of the day, Dr Krish Kandiah, who helped them formulate their thoughts around the values that make up the foundation of their action, helping them to tap into their inner drive.
The students then committed to a series of actions to take their plans forward and these will be followed up in session two entitled ‘Ready 2 Change the World’, which will take place on 9 November.
Mr Everitt went on the explain, “Every year previous attendees have come back as student leaders and it was fantastic to see the confidence these young people had developed one year on from the conference and knowing, from them, that in some way Ready2Lead? had given them an opportunity to grow as individuals and to lead change.”
Student feedback:
“The biggest thing I learnt on the day was how different some people’s opinions are, different people from different backgrounds all sharing the same end goal, but each and every one of them coming at this challenge from a different angle.”