Academic Festival

The theme of this year’s Academic Festival was Fashion! Pupils were invited to attend the day in 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s fancy dress (which each House choosing a different decade.) Costumes ranged from ‘Clueless’ characters to Audrey Hepburn and Janis Joplin. The timetable was collapsed for the day so pupils could attend various fashion themed workshops including ones on sustainability, AI and smart materials. There were also special themed lessons in Maths, Art, Politics, Music, History and PTE. A big thanks to all the teachers who worked hard to help pupils enrich their appreciation of Fashion across all their subjects. Pupils were asked to write down accounts of what they learnt throughout the day in their workbooks and the most informative ones received family tickets to the REBEL Fashion show at the Design Museum.

We welcomed many guests from the Fashion Retail Academy, Jimmy Choo Academy, Reskinned, Drapers and many more. The day ended with a fabulous Q&A session with the designer Roksanda Ilinčić, fashion businesswoman Aizel Trudel, as well as Jimmy Choo’s best friend and Fashion Retail Academy’s top student. This was chaired by Chanda Pandya, senior lecturer at Fashion Retail Academy. The panel was followed by the wonderful dance performance and a surprise teacher catwalk show, accompanied by the Brass Ensemble. We will never forget Mr Tillett’s pink suit! Thank you to all involved for a really memorable day.