‘Identity’ conference shares ideas online
FALLIBROOME Academy welcomed an extreme athlete, pop star and a ‘bone geek’ for its specialist youth event.
Five guests were invited to take part in the school’s TEDx Youth@Manchester conference, an event organised with the nonprofit organisation Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED), which is devoted to providing a platform for schools and businesses to share ideas online.
Around 450 students and teachers from Fallibroome and other schools, including All Hallows Catholic College, Poynton High School, Congleton High School and Cheth- am’s School of Music, came together to hear talks and artistic performances reflecting the theme of ‘Identity’, which was broadcast live over the internet.
It’s the eighth time the school has hosted the youth conference, this year welcoming: Kat Arney, science communicator and BBC radio and TV Host; Nicola Osborne, social media officer for EDINA, a JISC Datacentre based at the University of Edinburgh; Ben Smith, extreme athlete, fundraiser and CEO of the 401 Foundation ‘Happiness’; VV Brown, British indie pop singer-songwriter, model and record producer; and Ben Garrod, evolutionary biologist, TV presenter and self-confessed ‘Bone Geek’.
Student speakers at the event were Imogen Walsh, Sophie Baxter, Maddie Travers and Nina HollandJones, Sam Amey, Nicola Smith and Ellena Wilson, and Ignacio Mana Mesas and Tammas Slater talking about how their music composition relates to identity.
The short talks were interspersed with educational and entertaining TED talks, video shorts and musical entertainment from Fallibroome student Ewan Kilpatrick, VV Brown and Chetham’s students Ignacio Mana Mesas and Tammas Slater.
The morning was brought to a close by local band Cassia, headed by Fallibroome alumni Rob Ellis and Louis Cotterill.
During the afternoon, Fallibroome sixth form students were given the opportunity to attend a panel interview event with the speakers and made best use of time with the experts discussing a range of subjects including gender identity, mental health and the role of gene manipulation on human evolution.
Peter Rubery, Fallib- roome’s executive principal, said: “We are honoured to be part of the remarkable TEDx community and create such won- derful opportunities for our students to engage with the TED mission to spread ideas.
“All our speakers and performers were very impressive and the feedback we have received confirmed that this was a very special event.”