2021 Chair’s Speech: Your Future, Your Voice
This is a speech by the Academic Committee Chair, Christopher Lim, at the Pupil Council meeting of committees (MoC), 22 March 2021.
Thank you very much, Sir.
Since January 2020, I’ve had the privilege of leading the Academic Committee as Chair and Development Secretary, working with a team of enthusiastic and dedicated members. Over the past academic year, since I last spoke to this council in September, we’ve achieved our goals and objectives, and much more.
I had the honour of hosting and organising the Network Summit, where we were able to bring together academics at some of the UK’s leading universities to speak on the courses they offer, the research they undertake, and the questions they continue to ask. We had a total of 13 lectures, with 13 different beaks hosting, countless pupils from both within and outside of Charterhouse, along with the many parents and teachers from across the world who participated in the Network Summit.
This would not have been achievable without the help of Mr Allen, who helped coordinate with beaks and the IT Department, the Marketing Department, especially Mrs McGivern and Miss Clarke, for helping promote the event, Mrs Wilson, for sending the details and information to our partner schools, and countless others. To them, we thank you for invaluable help in making this a reality.
But that’s not all we’ve done this year. We’ve launched research efforts to further reform pupil-led Academic peer mentoring, this time through societies, a policy called SkillsSoc Pathways, and our AcademicWorks package commitments have been fulfilled.
Moreover, our plans for the future will set us on a steady path going forward. The establishment of committee budgets means our Treasury is able to fully evaluate the cost of our upcoming projects in CQ (Summer Term), and our Treasurer is in the best position to support our initiatives and policies.
We’ve also become more transparent than before, sending out semi-regular Green Papers, known as Our Future, where we’ve been able to propose different policies, from SkillsSoc Pathways to the Network Summit, updating members at the same time.
For the upcoming term, we have ambitious plans to continue our Network Olympiad, a series of academic challenges for pupils, meant to embolden our Charterhouse Values, whether it be persistence in challenging oneself, open-mindedness to new things, or taking on the responsibility of committing such time.
We’ll also be planning our Immerse summer university fair, where we’ll provide 1YS with the opportunity to hear from more academics about the many courses on offer at their universities, as well as the research they do. In addition, we plan to use merchandise as a means of raising awareness of our work and encouraging greater participation.
All in all, we believe that the Academic Committee couldn’t have worked the way it did without the help from Pupil Voice. Thank you for the opportunity, and we hope to continue to deliver.
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Chair’s Office, Academic Committee
Christopher Lim, MBC is Chair, Secretary for Development, and Secretary for the Environment of the Academic Committee
