As many of you may remember, Sixth Form is both an exciting and challenging time! As students, we are able to specialise in the subjects we love and start making decisions for the future, but we are also juggling applications to universities and revising for our exams. The future beyond Sherfield is on the horizon.
Throughout my 15 years at Sherfield, I have always been quite quiet. I loved to be creative but wasn’t sure where this would lead me. Since starting in Sixth Form, with the small class sizes, close community of friends and supportive teachers, I have been able to discover and pursue what I am really passionate about: Marketing, Communication and Event management, which I hope to begin studying at university next year.
When applying for the position of Head Girl, I had lots of aspirations, one of which was to give pupils a voice; to communicate and share our experiences of Sherfield with a wider audience, but I wasn’t sure how this would take shape!
Working with fellow sixth former Florence W and our school marketing manager, we had the idea to create a Sherfield Sixth Form TikTok account (@sherfield6thform). We film and edit relevant content for the platform (with the help of the sixth formers), to showcase what Sherfield is all about, for a global audience. Our first video (uploaded at the end of November) now sits at more than two million views; an enormous number that we never imagined. In the two months of the account being live, our following now sits at nearly 13,000! We have both had a lot of fun keeping up with latest trends and filming engaging content for our videos, but on a serious note, we are extremely proud to have reached international students who have since enquired about joining the school.
Florence and I have also created a podcast named Sherfield Shouts, which is available to listen to on Spotify now! This will be a series of episodes involving interviews with guest speakers (including staff, current and former students). Our first episode released on 19th January is an interview with our Executive Head, Mr Brain. This was an informal chat about all things from careers and challenges, to pets, pirates and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.
As Head Girl, I also wanted to organise an event which would support other students in discovering their interests, and as such have been working on Sherfield’s first ever careers fair. Alongside fellow student Natalie H, we have been busy planning this since the beginning of this school year, and on 4th March we look forward to welcoming parents and external organisations from a huge variety of industries (including medicine, retail, finance and the military) to inspire Sherfield’s Years 7 – 13s.
If you had told me two years ago that I would be organising events, interviewing on podcasts and talking to cameras on TikTok to a global audience, I would have laughed, but I am grateful for these sixth form experiences which have given me the confidence to find my voice, follow my passions, support other students and give back to Sherfield.
Tilly R
Head Girl, 2021-22