One of our first Horizon’s guest speakers was Shaun Attwood, a former stock-market millionaire and ecstasy trafficker. After being convicted of drug trafficking in 2002, Shaun was sentenced to a gruelling nine years in the US prison system. His story gained international attention after being featured on Banged Up Abroad, highlighting his time in one of America’s deadliest jails under Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Shaun now campaigns for prisoner rights and works with schools to deter youth from drugs and crime. Our Sixth Form students were fascinated to hear some of his horrifying tales of life behind bars.

On Tuesday 21 January we were delighted to welcome the TV producer, Richard Burrell, to Tormead to speak about “How To Have A Career Behind The Camera – and other ways to frighten your parents”. Pupils from Tormead, Guildford County, Godalming College and St Peter’s came together to hear Richard speak about what it is like to be a producer and how he navigated his journey to where he is today.

From being part of the National Youth Theatre and pursuing a career as an actor to being a runner at the BBC, Richard’s career has grown through the love of his work and a keen enthusiasm for creating television programmes. He is now a producer and executive producer with shows such as New Tricks, Silent Witness, Robin Hood, Waking the Dead, Alex Rider and All Creatures Great and Small under his belt.

Richard also explained in great depth the complexity of producing a television programme. From working with animals and children, dealing with adverse weather conditions or creating a jungle, it seems that a day in the life of a producer is very varied. Not to mention timetabling and budgeting to be able to bring a project in on time and on budget, something that can be applied to many career paths outside of the television industry.

It was also refreshing to hear his perspective on both pursuing a creative career and being a parent to children who are deciding which direction they want to take their lives at the moment. Richard championed the idea that doing what you love should be taken into consideration just as much as how much money you may mak

We were delighted to welcome Liz Cann to Tormead on 9^th October to talk to our Talented Performer Programme athletes about the importance of setting goals. As a professional badminton player, the highlight of Liz’s career was winning two Bronze medals at the Delhi Commonwealth Games and becoming a five-time national champion in her sport. Since her retirement, Liz has become passionate about studying neurolinguistic programming and mindset enhancing tools and techniques to get the best from herself. Liz enjoys passing on these techniques to others and spoke to our young sportswomen about the importance of shifting from outcome-based thinking to identity-based thinking.

For this year’s annual Clayton Scholars’ Dinner & Lecture, we were privileged to have Katherine Elsom as our guest speaker. Katherine is a Tormead alumna who shared her memories with us of her time here. It was lovely to reconnect with her and bond over the similarities Tormead still has today, such as the houses, but it was also strange to see old photos of Tormead – we all found the old atrium unrecognizable.

Next, she took us through her journey after Tormead, from Cambridge University to starting her first job in satellite technology to map data such as climate change and forest conservation. Katherine described how that then led her into the inspiring world of space strategy. She demonstrated how taking risks and making the most of opportunities took her into a field she would have never expected to be in; the field of spaceship design. The most important message I took from her talk was to make the most of every moment, she stressed that university and school is a time to cherish and spend with friends.

We were delighted to welcome Tormead alumna, Annabel Hulme, back to the school to talk to our Sixth Form students about her career journey since leaving Tormead in 2012. Annabel initially decided that she wanted to work in fashion and graduated from Loughborough University in 2016 with a degree in Textiles: Innovation and Design. Her work saw her move to Paris where she gained an apprenticeship at Atelier Lebuisson ICM developing and creating embroideries for a range of high-profile clients including Dior, Fendi and Louis Vuitton.

In 2020, Annabel had a change of heart and decided to retrain as a midwife, following in her mother’s footsteps. She graduated with a First-Class degree in Midwifery from King’s College London and now works at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, a job that she finds incredibly rewarding. Our Sixth Form students were interested to hear that it is possible to change careers and that your future is not always set in stone.

On Friday 26th September, during our fortnightly Sixth Form Horizon session, Sir Jeremy Hunt, a senior politician and local Conservative MP for Godalming and Ash, came to Tormead to deliver a short speech and then answered many questions from the audience.

Hunt talked about the benefits and downsides of his job as an MP as well as the changeable nature of politics. His experience as a politician started in 2005 when he was elected as an MP, and it transformed entirely when he was appointed as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2010-2012, Secretary of State for Health in 2012-2018 and then became the Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Liz Truss in 2022. We found his experience of being Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport particularly interesting as he explained his initial anxiety about organising the upcoming London Olympics and his lack of sporting experience leading to a true interest in sport. His time as a minister in various Conservative governments led him to make many difficult decisions for the country, and it was a considerable opportunity for Tormead’s Sixth Form students to learn the rationale behind some of these decisions.

During the question and answer segment of the talk, Hunt spoke of the dangers of the Russian/Ukrainian war and whether he had any regrets from his time in power. Hunt detailed his relationship with Keir Starmer (the current Prime Minister) and what he believed Starmer should do to improve the current political situation of the Labour party, giving a mature answer, saying that he truly wanted Starmer to succeed. Other topics he spoke about were the question of tax on private schools and his methods of maintaining mental health whilst under such public scrutiny, to which he gave an incredibly honest answer that everyone appreciated. Students were particularly interested in the striking of junior doctors based on Hunt’s guidance as Health Secretary and the threat of Reform UK to the Conservative party.

Having Sir Jeremy Hunt visit our school was an amazing privilege, and a great opportunity to learn more about working in the world of politics. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, and there was a lively discussion on topics everyone in the room cared about to some extent, whether that be decisions Hunt made regarding junior doctors or the current socio-economic state of the world.

Professor Anthony Musson, Head of Research at Royal Historic Palaces and Principal Investigator on the ‘Henry on Tour’ project, came in to give us an intriguing lecture about King Henry VIII. The evening started with a lovely dinner and then we headed up to the lecture theatre to start.

A letter written in Latin and French to Henry’s “nan” or, as we all know her, Anne Boleyn was one of the first artefacts shown and read to us. This was one of many interesting facts about King Henry VIII that I didn’t know. Others included the dwelling in what is now Guildford’s Friary centre, Woking and surrounding areas and his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzgerald. Personally, I enjoyed the talk as the past really interests me, but I am sure that everyone will agree that, no matter what interests you have, the talk was incredibly engaging.

We were delighted to welcome Dr Rebecca Randell from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute to work with athletes from Year 7 to Sixth Form as part of our Talented Performer Programme (TPP). Dr Randell delivered an insightful afternoon of workshops, focusing on how to effectively fuel the body before, during, and after exercise to maximise performance.

Following this, she led a session open to all Senior School pupils and their families, exploring how parents and daughters can work together to ensure proper nutrition supports the demands of sport, exercise, and physical activity. The event was a fantastic success, with 45 families engaging in discussions with Dr Randell and 60 TPP pupils benefiting from her expertise earlier in the day.

This workshop followed a recent visit from British swimmer Cerian Harries, who spoke on female physiology in sport, as well as high-performance sessions and Q&As with professional athletes Kelly Simm (Gymnastics), Shona McCallin MBE (Hockey), and Eboni Usoro-Brown (Netball). Pupils from Year 5 to Sixth Form had the invaluable opportunity to learn from elite athletes, gaining key insights into training, competition, and the pathway to sporting success.

It has been an incredibly exciting period for the PE & Sports Department, filled with outstanding opportunities for our pupils to learn, develop, and be inspired by experts in the field.

Kevin Wells is Professor of AI in Human and Veterinary Healthcare at the University of Surrey. He started his career as a Medical Physicist working at the Royal Marsden Hospital/Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton. At University College London he worked on optical imaging for premature infants. During a long and varied career at Surrey, his current research is based around One Health: the transfer of knowledge between human health and veterinary healthcare, for the benefit of both domains.