“The school builds leadership opportunities into almost every aspect of school life… allowing its girls to decide what matters to them, building their confidence, providing the skills they need to find their voice and, ultimately, lead from the front”
Taking the Lead
Leadership opportunities are a key feature at Notting Hill & Ealing High School and there are plenty of roles for our students to get involved and take the lead in areas they feel passionately about. Our Learning to Lead Programme offers a number of opportunities and specific roles which can be applied for.
Every form has two Form Reps and two Charity Reps from Year 7-11. There are also Form Houses Reps, while Year 8s have the chance to become a Lower School Leader, with other Form-based roles for Year 7 and 8 including Sports Reps, Food Reps and Assembly Reps. In the Sixth Form we have our Head Girl and Head Girls’ Team, Games Captain, House Captains and Year 12 Subject Reps.
We also have a Leadership Programme for our Year 9s and 10s with specific roles which our students may apply for covering the following areas: Debating & Public Speaking, Journalism, Eco-Reps, Humanitarian, Digital, Volunteering, Social Affairs, Interfaith, Science Publications and Wellbeing. The idea of the programme is that each student who takes on one of these roles comes up with ideas to do something meaningful around the school – to make a real and tangible difference.
Beyond this, our students often come up with initiatives of their own. We have had students organising Swimmathons, setting up a Scarecrow Trail within Ealing and founding a weekend AI conference. Our students get involved in creating and leading larger events such as Film Festivals and Fashion Shows, to selecting speakers for conferences, award shows and taking the lead in running these events.
Speaking up
Underlying Learning to Lead is a robust debating and public speaking programme which supports our students to develop their confidence in formulating and expressing their ideas.
We have created a variety of initiatives to enable our students to hone and practise this in a warm, inclusive environment, built on mutual respect.
From our Learning Amazons Project in the Lower School to running House Shouts, Soap Box Speeches, Debating Clubs and Societies exploring far-reaching topics (“Pineapple on pizza should be banned!”), Pupil-Teacher debates (“This House Believes Harry Potter should be banned”) to organising day long conferences such as a UN-inspired public speaking conference involving other schools, the opportunities are wide and far-reaching.
Teachers use debate-led discussion within the classroom and specific projects in other subjects (eg our Maths based Enigma programme, an Engineering Program run by our Physics Department, History Masterclass) which all help to ensure our students are always deepening their communication skills and learning to find their voice in a meaningful way.
We are proud to have received a ‘High Commendation’ in the Oracy Culture Awards 2020 awarded by the English Speaking Union.
Entrepreneurship
We encourage our students to get involved in two enterprise challenges, the Tycoon Challenge (Year 8 and 12) and the 10X Challenge (Year 9). These schemes enable our students to come up with interesting business ideas of their own and have the chance to promote and sell their products at an Enterprise Fair which is organised at School.
