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A “soft skills” day for Wheeler students saw pupils discussing topics ranging from deepfake images of Taylor Swift to the career of Sylvester Stallone.
Also up for debate were the relative influence of celebrities versus politicians and the merits of a pre-university gap year.
The Year 11 students were on a study day at Wellington College that featured a talk from Nikki Coleman of the Prospect Trust careers services team and a series of sessions from Talk About, an organisation that provides bespoke training with a focus on soft skills.
Talk About mentors Venandah Madanhi and Nour Abuarqub (pictured above with the Wheeler students) encouraged the group to take sides in debates about artificial intelligence, gap years and influencers, as well as asking them to think about the skills that make people successful.
Established in 2017, the Wheeler Programme is a fully-funded educational programme for around 100 selected state school pupils.
Twenty-four students are selected in Year 9 and the college helps support them until their graduation from the programme at the end of Year 13.
Partner state schools include St Crispin’s, The Holt, Ranelagh and The Piggott.
The programme includes a mixture of group activities, visits to workplaces, universities, organisations and people; talks, lectures, workshops and discussions; individual coaching, and tailored mentoring.
