WELLINGTEN – JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Wellington College Senior School pupils take the stage to deliver the College’s first round of 2016/17 WELLINGTEN Talks

On Monday 5th September, three brave Senior School pupils delivered the College’s first round of WELLINGTEN Talks, addressing an audience of over 200 staff and pupils in the Seldon Theatre. In an initiative led by the pupils and hosted by the pupils, the Heads of School introduced the concept of the WELLINGTEN to their peers: The WELLINGTEN Talks are a formula to deliver inspiring ideas in a short time, engaging and enthusing audiences by highlighting areas for further intellectual development and exploration. The brief for the speakers is simple: take one central intellectual idea and play around with it for 10 minutes. The first speaker chose to speak on the use of Nanotechnology in the fight against cancer. Having chosen such a complex topic, he introduced this multi-disciplinary study by discussing how nanotechnology has been explored in popular culture. By introducing science fiction authors such as Michael Crichton, the lecture was engaging and passionate about key developments in this field such as HER2 Biomarkers and theranostic nanomedicines, and was concluded by offering encouragement for the continuation of scientific exploit in this area. The next pupil spoke about time management. Having recently achieved straight A* grades at IGCSE, she chose to share her experiences and sentiments towards time as an idea and concept, looking to inspire and empower her peers to better value the present whilst always looking to future. Focusing on key themes of relevance to all pupils such as self-motivation and the risks of procrastination, to use her words, “time management is personal, and lost time is never found.” The final speaker in the series was one of our Year 9 pupils. As a Canadian, he used his ten minutes as an attempt to abolish stereotypes and explain key differences between US and Canadian society. Touching on a range of areas including political, linguistic, demographic and economic dissimilarity, this excellently balanced talk discussed problems whilst offering solutions, using case studies in the insurance and education sectors in revealing his views on two “imperfect yet different systems.” Following their launch at Wellington College in the UK, a WELLINGTEN is a short 10-minute lecture that aims to communicate a message to a large audience with effective clarity and speed, leveraging intellectual aspiration and increasing excitement about the world of ideas and possibilities. WELLINGTEN was officially launched in Tianjin in April 2016, as the College hosted an international panel of educational leaders to share their views on the topic, Educating for the Future: 21st Century Skills for 21st Century Leaders. The WELLINGTEN Talks will continue to be led by Senior School pupils at the College throughout the 2016/17 Academic Year, allowing as many pupils as possible to discuss topics and issues that are important to them as individuals, whilst allowing their fellow pupils to gain insight and inspiration from this snappy and appealing style of presentation.