Round Square Sixth Form Conference at Westfield School
Conferences
Round Square Sixth Form Conference at Westfield School
Seven Cobham Hall girls were fortunate to be able to attend the Round Square 6th form conference held at Westfield School, Newcastle, from the 11th to the 15th of March.
The theme of the conference was ‘The World in Harmony’ and was focused on culture, art, dance and music as a way of uniting people from all over the world. Most of the European schools attended so our students had an opportunity to make friends with people from England, Scotland, Germany, France, Denmark and Switzerland. Our hostesses from Westfield were very welcoming and we stayed at their homes.
After the Opening Ceremony, we had our first guest speaker, the author, Anne Fine. She was warm and witty and spoke about her own inspiration and motivations for writing. It was interesting to hear how her encounter with a divorced neighbour had led to the script for the movie, Mrs Doubtfire.
On Friday, we spent the morning at the magnificent Sage Gateshead concert hall which was designed by the British architect Norman Foster. It is a wonderful space. We had three music workshops: percussion, sign language and singing. Much to our surprise, we then put on a lunch time concert for the patrons of the cafe. The whole space reverberated with the sound of our drums and passersby stopped to listen. From there we moved to the Baltic Art Gallery for some art workshops. We created an enormous frieze on a glass window, illustrating the theme, ‘A world in harmony’. That evening we were entertained by our host families.
On Saturday, our speaker was Mr Paul Rubenstein. He works for Newcastle City Council. Mr Rubenstein explained what Newcastle had been like in the 1980s, following the collapse of the mining and ship building industries. The river had been polluted and the banks filled with rat infested sheds. He explained the whole process of the city’s regeneration which was largely driven by the artists and creative people. It began with the erection of ‘The Angel of the North’ and the cleaning up of the river. Now the city is bustling and full of theatres, galleries and studios. It has a very creative vibe. We broke into Barazza groups to discuss the impact of art in our own lives, some deep and meaningful discussions were held.
In the afternoon, some instructors from Dance UK put us through our paces and we had three workshops exploring different forms of street dance and hip hop before putting on a short show. In the evening we went on a cruise on the Tyne River. It was a brilliant party boat, with a buffet dinner and disco. Most amazingly, they opened the Millennium Bridge specially for us, we felt like royalty. Although we had been dancing all afternoon, we were able to summon enough strength to get on the dance floor again.
On Sunday, we had a bit of a later start and had our third and final keynote speaker, Ed Vaizey. He is a conservative MP and the shadow minister for culture. He spoke about the importance of the government supporting the arts and artists. After his speech we broke into Barazzas to prepare the conference statement. Many agreed that art was the missing pillar of Round Square and that we needed to find a place for it in our expression of Round Square in our schools.
In the afternoon we had time to prepare a short presentation on the theme, The World in Harmony, for the closing ceremony. Although we argued a lot, we were able to put on a skit that showed just how diverse (yet harmonious) we are as a group. We had six nationalities between the seven of us!
After the closing ceremony, we returned to the Baltic Art Gallery for a wonderful and glamorous dinner looking out over the city.
We were filled with excitement at the regeneration of Newcastle and the hope it offers other cities in the future. We made wonderful friends and are so pleased we had this opportunity.
Our thanks to all the staff and students at Westfield who were truly excellent hosts.
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