A Year of Achievements: Celebrating our Future Leaders

It's that time of year again when our Future Leaders, families, friends, alumni and supporters come together to celebrate everyone's achievements over the last 12 months. 

Our Future Leaders took to the stage to share their reflections and progress in each of our hubs. 

Swindon

Our celebration events for 2024 kicked off at the Swindon Town Football Club where we welcomed Future Leaders from across Swindon and Wiltshire.

One of the highlights of the evening was hearing from Mahnoor who reflected on her experience of coaching and joining the Early Entry programme in Year 12. 

"I think often at school there's not much time to think about anything other than tests, exams, GCSEs and that's where Villiers Park came in."

By joining the programme, Mahnoor was able to explore various universities and fain a deeper understanding of what each institution could offer.

"I wrote my own presentation, listened to groups of like-minded individuals, completed different leadership programmes and worked on myself, gaining confidence and becoming the person I wanted to be and began my journey to reach the goal that I wanted to reach."

Mahnoor accepts her Mike Baker Award

Later in the evening, Mahnoor was announced as the Year 12 winner of the Mike Baker Award. Named in memory of our esteemed former trustee, this award recognises one Future Leader in each year who has excelled in all aspects of the programme. Mahnoor's dedication, growth and achievements made this very well-deserved.

We were also thrilled to welcome members of the team from AM, our valued partner and supporter who ran courses on Women in Medicine and 1960's Culture. 

Hastings and Bexhill

We were thrilled to have our Future Leaders take centre stage at the Hastings celebration event. The evening was brilliantly compered by Year 13 leavers, Clara and Jodie.

One of the evening's highlights was welcoming Kerola and Erin to present a summary of their Leadership Challenge project. Their initiative involved planning, setting up and delivering a series of drama workshops for local primary school students. Speaking passionately, Kerola and Erin explained their choice of project, highlighting the drastic decrease in arts funding and their desire to encourage younger students to engage with drama, recognising its significant benefits for confidence and communication. 

Kerola and Erin sharing their Leadership Challenge Project

The evening's success was further underscored by heartfelt feedback from a parent of a Future Leader:

"I would just like to thank everyone at Villiers for the great celebratory evening last night. It was heart warming to see all the students receiving recognition for their achievements.

My daughter has been a recipient of the Villiers Park scheme and benefited greatly from the support, advice and guidance provided by her mentor Alex."

Norwich

We held this year's celebration event at Sprowston Community Academy, one of our Future Leader schools in Norwich.

Monique shared her experience at the University of Bath Residential this year via a pre-recorded video. It was excellent for current Year 9s who will be starting the programme in September to see what our residentials are all about and give them time to get excited for it! 

Megan, Programme Coordinator for Norfolk, hands out the Mike Baker Award

Tom, a Year 12 student shared his experience on the programme and recounted his work on his Leadership Challenge Project. 

"Being part of the Villiers Park scheme has helped massively with both my wellbeing as a student as well as my ability to thrive in my post-16 school life. Being part of a community that can help me become the best version of myself has really helped me moving forwards. An example of this is with my community project in which I ran an F1 in school teams for lower years. This competition involved designing, iterating and making miniature-scale foam F1 cars which were then raced on a national scale. I have been passionate for this competition since a young age and being able to pass my knowledge to lower years, encouraging diversity and inclusivity in this competition was a brilliant opportunity which I can learn form and take forward into my own future."

Tyneside

This year, in our Tyneside hub, the celebration event ran a little differently! We blended the celebration with an introduction to and tour of Northumbria University.

A huge thank you to Northumbria University and their Student Ambassadors for making the celebration and Insight Day such a success! 

We were joined for the Celebration Event by Anne Reece and Eric Morgan from the Reece Foundation, who generously support our programme in Tyneside, enabling us to inspire and engage more young people with STEM subjects and future pathways. 

We were delighted to present this year's Diana Hiles Award to Liam, a Year 10 student, and Luke, a Year 12 student. This award celebrates the personal development of Future Leaders, who take social action through Leadership Challenge projects. Liam's project focused on the different types of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on education, healthcare, finance and insurance. Meanwhile, Luke's project also had a digital focus, offering essential advice on online safety for young people, explaining internet cookies and how organisations gather their user data. 

Director of Programmes, Deborah Richardson said:

"Over 40 Future Leaders and their parents turned up on a very rainy Saturday morning to have an introduction to applying to university and Northumbria in particular, followed by a tour. The group returned to sandwiches and refreshments before we began celebrating the achievements and highlights of the year. There were some excellent presentations by alumni and current Future Leaders who spoke about Leadership Challenge and some of the events." 

Liam with his AI based Leadership Challenge Project

School's out for summer! 

After an incredible year, we wish all our Future Leaders and their families - and everyone who supports the programme, from amazing staff in schools and colleges to volunteers, supporters, university partners and the Villiers Park team - a wonderful summer. See you in September!