NEWS, EV ENTS & AC T I V I T I ES
Lectures INSPIRATION FOR ALL AT ST PETER’S Our various programmes of lectures brought over 20 speakers to the school to enthuse, educate and entertain pupils, the wider St Peter’s community and members of the public who come in their thousands to enjoy what we offer. We are delighted to continue to be a major partner in the York Literature Festival (March) and York Festival of Ideas (June). Two of our visitors in the Christmas Term were OPs. In September, Alan Mak, now MP for Havant, visited for a Memorial Hall lunch and spoke to an enthusiastic group of Sixth Formers. Actor Greg Wise visited in October to take tea with Drama and English pupils and appear ‘In Conversation’ in the evening. Greg’s sister, Clare – one of our first female Sixth Formers – recently died of breast and bone cancer, with Greg leading her care and he spoke about the blog they kept together, now a book, Not That Kind of Love. As the political rollercoaster continued to buck and weave, Rosa Prince, biographer of both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May was here in the middle of party conference season to give us some welcome context. Our first Sixth Form Lecture was from the explorer Tim Emmett, whilst for our second we were honoured to welcome back holocaust survivor Iby Knill who spoke movingly of her and her family’s experience and her survival of Auschwitz.
Five very different speakers placed their perspectives in front of Sixth Formers in the first half of the Easter Term. The Rt Rev James Jones, former Bishop of Liverpool, spoke about his work not just as a Bishop, but in the public sphere, particularly in chairing the Hillsborough Independent Panel, and the interplay between the church, politics and society. Imperial College’s Professor Emeritus Nick Bosanquet explored the changing fortunes of the generations and the prospects for St Peter’s millennials as they prepared to enter the workforce. Anthony Robinson is an OP with a long and distinguished career in international relations, who returned to update us on geopolitics in Eastern Europe and in particular, the forthcoming presidential election in the Ukraine at which he was to be an election observer. Once again, a new generation of Sixth Formers enjoyed Mike Hurst’s lecture The Music Makers, accompanied with his guitar, whilst Patrick Foster visited for the first time to talk about the dangers of a gambling addiction, drawing on a dark period in his own life.
“Five very different speakers placed their perspectives in front of Sixth Formers.”
The Peterite 2018–2019
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