On the 10th February, Bill Pirie visited year 12 to educate us on "Driving Safely". He has been a traffic policeman for most of his life, and was very clear about the consequences of even one point on your driving licence. His talk included a dynamic PowePoint presentation and he used various facts and figures to show the rate of deaths/accidents in the UK due to careless driving. Not only this, Pirie described his personal experiences in the police force and how he was duty bound to deliver heart-breaking news to families.... all because of a careless mistake on the roads. A combination of anecdotes, funny videos, driving tips and references to the safe, non alcoholic life awaiting us at university made for a fantastic forum session! It definitely woke us all up on a rainy Thursday morning.  Priyanka Chaturvedi

On the 8th Feburary, we got an insight into accountancy and sat through an interesting talk from representatives of the accountancy firm Ernst & Young. The talk centered around their business trainee scheme which gives the opportunity to people who are not going to university (but have A levels) to join their internationally known firm. We are also told about what they do within Ernst & Young and how much they enjoy their job. It was a very enlightening talk and I expect that many will sign up to the ACCA! I think, after this morning, accountancy is no longer stereotyped as an old fashioned career. Jacob Bullard.

On the 25th of January, Josh Herring led the Sixth Form assembly and he talked to us about the Ben Herring trust. This is a Charity set up in memory of Josh's Brother who died of a malignant brain tumor in 2008 at the age of 18. This Charity was set up to help raise funds to help the fight against this cancer. Josh's talk touched a lot of people; this was a story close to many people's hearts, as his brother attended Colfe's School. Many of us remember the day that we were told about Ben Herring's untimely death, and I am sure most of us will be eager to donate to the Ben Herring Trust soon. Jacob Bullard.  

On the 27th of January, Year 12's Forum session consisted of a lively debate between the four houses: Bramley, Beardwood, Norton and Prendergast. The motion put forward was "Men are no longer the sole decision makers" and for the motion were Charlie Whittaker and Jamie Cox from Beardwood, and Paul Shehadah and Mick Hunter from Bramley. Fighting against the motion were Pascal Crowe and Rebecca Dowse from Prendergast, and Joseph Ives and Harry Morris from Norton. Considering they only had 15 minutes to prepare for the debate, it genuinely was extremely witty, intelligent and captivating. The audience laughed along and we had all soon fallen in love with Paul's "priestess" argument! Overall, it was an exciting debate and the final winners were Beardwood. Debatable! Priyanka Chaturvedi   

On the 18th November our Forum session was a little different! Instead of the usual visiting speaker, Year 13 A2 Level drama students performed their pieces for the first time to an audience of just under 100 Lower Sixth students. As we waited in the Beardwood foyer to be let inside the theatre, the first performance began! One student, who introduced the theme of the play, then led us through the drama department. We entered the auditorium from backstage and whilst walking along, we came across some other students, who stood still in character as freeze frames. The audience sat on either side of the stage and we got a real feel for interactive theatre – the idea of the performance revolving around the question: why do people feel isolated and want to break out? Why are their feelings muffled? This was a fantastic, thought-provoking performance piece, and was supported brilliantly by the faultless acting skills of the students.

The second piece we witnessed was a lovely portrayal of three couples – all of different ages. It explored the complications of a relationship as well as the simple feelings and emotions involved whether you are a newer couple, a couple who has been married for a few years or a happy old couple! The relationships were shown in a great way and the actors clearly worked hard at making it appear very believable onstage. The music and lighting was carefully thought out and the staging helped to emphasize the bold characters over everything else. Overall it was a wonderful morning and it very refreshing to see our own peers’ hard work so far this term – best of luck to them for their examined performance! They will undoubtedly do brilliantly.

On the 25th of November, the Lower Sixth had a very interesting morning of talks! As our guest speaker was not present, Mr Drury promptly stood in for him and gave us a talk, along with a PowerPoint, on what he has achieved throughout his life. Surprisingly, we came to know that Mr Drury was involved in local councils and elections, and has represented a few parties in his time; including The Conservatives! This was quite shocking - although he is a Politics teacher! Being such a fantastic speaker, Mr Drury explained why he believed he supported Conservative over the other parties today, one reason being that he “believes in the individual, not the state”. Mr Drury explained how being a councillor is harder than it seems – but when a member of the audience guessed that a councillor earns £50 000 a year, he laughed and bluntly admitted that job would be very overly paid! It was very inspiring to see how Mr Drury has progressed in life (through his serious ‘politician face’ improving in sternness continually in various photos of him from a younger age to present day) and how he knows why he believes in the Conservative party. Furthermore, he was not afraid to admit that he does not know full details of all their policies so will not comment on all of them. This is an admirable quality to have, as many draw conclusions without doing research. Fantastically honest and a great talk overall!

In the second session, where we usually have our Focus sessions to discuss the talk, our external speaker finally arrived! What a loss it was to miss the Focus. I’m sure everyone will agree! This week’s speaker was Erwin James, a man who had spent around 20 years in prison as he had been responsible for the untimely deaths of two men. James expressed his deep regret, and how one woman in his prison life convinced him that he could turn his life around. Naturally, this talk sparked a little bit of controversy amongst the students, and James stated himself that he was aware that he being there may make some feel uncomfortable. He described how his life had gone in the wrong direction, but also how he followed his passion of writing in prison. It was a harsh life – but Erwin James now writes for The Guardian newspaper. He honestly said he was not there to make excuses. He was there to demonstrate that prisons need to encourage their prisoners to change and learn to love, and so reduce the rate of reoffending. He was there to show that we must think of our actions today and not 20 years down the line. Once something happens, it cannot be taken back.

Sixth Form Report- Biology Talk, Nature verses Nurture by Hari Kulendran: On Thursday afternoon Professor Jeremy Turk came to Colfe’s school to give a presentation on nature vs. nurture. The presentation focused on genetics and how it plays a much more important role in a person’s traits than is generally recognised. A good example of this is one that Mr. Turk himself gave; a story of twins separated at birth. Even though they were subjected to very different environments and upbringings, when grown up they had very similar tastes in things like fashion and music etc. This highlights something about Mr. Turk which is superior to other speakers that we have listened to. He has the ability to make topics that are difficult to understand extremely interesting just in the way that he presents it. We were very fortunate that Mr. Turk g``ave this presentation on the very topics that he made his name on such as Fragile X syndrome. Overall the talk was very interesting, informative and incredibly useful to both biology and psychology students alike.

Sixth Form Report  on Assemblies by Jacob Bullard.On the 30th of November it was the turn of form 12/13 SLB to do an assembly. Their assembly took the form of a general knowledge quiz in which everyone took part. Each form was their own team and there were a few rounds of questions. This was a great opportunity to build teamwork within the form and to bring them closer, however some forms' competitiveness was inexplicable. The quiz was tough, but I would question the validity of the statement that insects have yellow blood; I for one was certain that they have green blood! Nevertheless, it was a well organised assembly and the winners of the quiz all were awarded with a cupcake each, baked by the lovely members of 12/13 SLB.

Year 12 Forum by Priyanka Chaturvedi. Every Thursday morning, the Lower Sixth are swept away from the gruelling studies of A level Maths, Politics, Physics, French or whatever takes their sleep away and assembled onto the refreshing red seats in the Beardwood Theatre. There is a forum session for about an hour with a guest speaker each week – but the first week on the 9th of September was a talk by Dr Thompson titled, “What are we doing here?” Dr Thompson gave us an enlightening talk on why we have decided to continue with school for Sixth Form – not everyone does! He outlined that as Sixth Formers, and having chosen our subjects, teachers expect a great deal more from us as we choose to be there and choose to study at Colfe’s School. Not only this, he highlighted that we must proactively involve ourselves in life in the Sixth Form by joining clubs, committees, taking part in the Extended Project Qualification or by going along on the annual Sixth Form trip to Gambia to help those who wish to study and make a living – but do not have the choice like us. He covered his own ambitions in life and mentioned how important helping out in Gambia is to him; Dr Thompson runs this trip each year and made us all aware of how fortunate we were to be sitting on the seats in front him. It was indeed a fantastic first forum session to introduce us to Colfe’s Sixth Form and show us the value of the lives we lead.

The following week’s forum session was led by Roger Elgood – “An Insight into Blindness”. I think I speak on behalf of almost everyone in Year 12 when I say that this talk really opened our minds. Roger Elgood, accompanied by his adorable guide dog, spoke to us about how unaware you can be of the difficulties that blind or partially sighted face on a day to day basis. We were told that when a blind person asks for directions, don’t just say “Oh it’s over there, next to Topshop”. Yes, it all sounds very obvious and it is common sense – but as we stopped to think, we realised how difficult it would be to describe locations without visual aid! Roger also brought in some specially designed household items for the partially sighted which included a talking watch and weighing scales which wished you a “good day” each time. Overall, this was a very entertaining forum session and it, quite ironically, opened our eyes!

The school nurse, Elaine Strafford, was brave enough on the morning of the 23rd of September to talk to around a hundred 16-year-olds about “Sexual health and wellbeing”. She was very relaxed, casual and used a helpful PowerPoint presentation to cover the key points of what we all should be aware of. Through her own personal experiences as a young nurse, Elaine described how things can go wrong and how easy it is to neglect our bodies at times. Sex is a very difficult topic to discuss with teenagers, but Elaine managed to condense the topic into a very informative and entertaining morning forum session with a very interesting song to complete it – “The 12 STIs of Christmas”. It was undoubtedly funny to listen to, but also conveyed the importance of sexual awareness to our year group; highlighting that even though we should know the risks; sex is fun but not a light hearted issue – we all need to be respectful of one another.

On the 30th of September, Anthony Slinn visited the Beardwood to talk to us about his passion for the artist Vincent Van Gogh. This talk really educated us about the history of Van Gogh and why his artwork is actually valued so much; leading us into an artistic mind. His fantastic PowerPoint presentation with great close-ups of Van Gogh’s paintings really brought the talk alive – but this was not all. Anthony Slinn had visited France and followed Van Gogh’s path to find some monuments he painted such as bridges and landscapes and used the photos he took himself in parallel with Van Gogh’s artwork. He outlined Van Gogh’s life story and how he died as well, really showing us why this artist is so important and such an influence on art today; he dared to paint what nobody considered worth painting. This was a great forum session, particularly for those of us who have that creative flair hiding behind the pile of ‘A’ level work that awaits us each evening! Mr Nigel Crowe’s talk however, was by far the craziest – “The Unreliable Career”! He really made a leap over the fourth wall and connected with the audience... by pushing his way amongst the sensibly seated students! Being a very popular teacher, Mr Crowe used his presentation to help us think of our futures. It started off with “Things that I hate” and he went over how he feels that we should not regret anything – we always have the choice. Soon enough, we were aware of the incredible choices he made in his life. From moving to Australia as a child to become a weight lifter, to having a mid-life crisis in his 20s and singing in a band in Turkey – Mr Crowe really demonstrated how much of a rollercoaster life can be. Ultimately, it was clear that despite all these changes he has been through, he has always embraced change and avoided regrets. Finally he outlined how he was very happy to be back in England with his wife as a Biology and Psychology teacher (quite appropriately!) and how he is no longer too afraid of hitting 50 years of age! Mr Crowe really proved himself to be a great role model with such a vibrant, happy-go-lucky personality and told us that we should be brave enough to stick to our decisions and embrace whatever life may throw at us! Undeniably it has been a great half term filled with enriching Forum sessions for the Lower Sixth – something I definitely look forward to each week! It truly is great to feel that life at Colfe’s Sixth Form does not stop at your A levels.