Nigel Topping (left)
Ellie Desmond (right)
Prof Matthew Todd (below)
TED-Ed
As well as inviting in speakers,
Sevenoaks students are training to
become TED speakers themselves.
It’s not often that you get a chance to publicly
showcase your ideas on a topic of choice, and
certainly not when you’re 14 years old.
TED’s educational programme, TED-Ed Clubs, has
helped give rise to a new generation of activists,
thinkers and explorers as they get a chance to develop
their original ‘ideas worth sharing’ and to present
them charismatically to a community audience. The
global initiative has swept schools.
I worked with an inquisitive group of nine, spanning
Year 9 to Year 12, who discussed their views on
various topics, for example the significance of
humanity (Sian McAllister, Year 11), the ethics of gene
modification using CRISPR-Cas9 (Katia Avanesov,
Year 9) and the consequences of extreme political
correctness (Jamie Ho, Lower Sixth). Throughout the
process of leading and teaching these speaking and
writing skills, I learned just as much from them as I
hope they did from me.
Vera Prokopieva, Lower Sixth
SEVENOAKS SCHOOL 2018-2019
13