Year 11 pupil Bailey Allmey looks back at the 2019 Harrow Fifth Form Conference, five days of inspirational learning and experiences, living alongside students from the worldwide family of Harrow Schools

The Harrow Fifth Form Conference was a great experience and had so much value. One of the many reasons for this was one of the main topics discussed throughout was leadership, and the qualities included within the very thin frame of ‘leadership’.

It allowed me to see and have different views on what leadership can or can’t be, and also what it should and shouldn’t be. We had many workshops covering what we thought leadership is, and what I learnt overall is that it many things, and it all depends on what type of leader you want.

However, an idea that I thought explained best whether you are a good leader or not was “if you are not serving the purpose of the organisation, you are not a good leader”, said to us by guest speaker, the Royal Navy’s Fleet Commander, Vice-Admiral Jerry Kyd.

We had many speeches and speakers during the Conference who gave us their views and opinion on what makes a good leader and what they think of leadership. I found them all very interesting, especially the speech by Vice-Admiral Kyd, which I found very informative and engaging, as I felt that he was the speaker I could relate to the most.

During the conference I made many friends from Harrow School, as well as some from Harrow International School Bangkok and Harrow International School Hong Kong. Making these friends made the experience much more enjoyable and interesting rather than only doing activities with other pupils from John Lyon.

The different activities and workshops, as well as trips to Oxford and University College London, encouraged us to talk and communicate with those from other schools, which I found helpful. I hope to meet up with some of the people I met on the conference in the near future and hope I have made life-long contacts.

One of the main highlights for me was the formal Conference dinner, which was a great experience and great fun. I was sat at the table with the teachers students from the other schools. I found it very interesting talking to these teachers about what they had done in the past, but also what I wish to do in the future. However, the main highlight of this night for me was the fact that it was my birthday, and so my teacher had so kindly organised a secret celebration, which was two cupcakes with candles, as well as to get the everyone to sing happy birthday, which is a memory I will never forget.

Overall, I think the Harrow Fifth Form Conference is a great way to spend five days; with so many great experiences packed so tightly, I feel you will not get an experience like it anywhere else.