TEDx-style conferences with a local school

The partnership is between sixth form students at Ringmer and Roedean. The students have worked all academic year to create a 2-part TEDx-style conference entitled 'Hearts' and 'Hands' to which students from both communities could collaborate, interact and learn from each other and then extend into their communities.

Speakers were arranged on a range of topics covering:

Volunteering in Africa - an awarding and life-changing experience

Representing your country through team sport - dealing with failure and the determination needed to succeed

Endurance challenges - rowing across the Atlantic a talk about immense power of self-belief and grasping a challenge with both hands.

The conference was an immense success and the individuals organising the conference learnt a lot, as well as the audience.

This 2-part conference has been the perfect initial stage in the partnership between Roedean and Ringmer. The next stage is the collaborations between academic departments - Art, Physics and Business Studies and two joint ventures for UCAS and establishing a farm at Roedean.

Aims

Collaboration between staff and students;
Sharing of knowledge and experience.
"Working together we can create something bigger than the parts."

Background

Students at both Roedean and Ringmer identified a need to interact more widely with their peers outside of their school boundaries to understand different challenges others face and to have the opportunity to learn from others.

Impact

The immediate beneficiaries are students organising the conference from both Ringmer and Roedean and the audience of a wider body of students from both schools are beneficiaries in the wider community.  The inspiration the events have inspired will go onto influence further collaboration activities between the schools.

The task was to create a 2-part conference, one part at Roedean and one at Ringer, with an audience and inspirational speakers on the themes of 'Hearts' and 'Hands'.