At this point of year, through the tiredness which the strain of the first half term has induced, with its student inductions, nights drawing in, parents evenings, and large swathes of syllabus content covered, I always look forward to entering one of our students as a nominee for the ISA Whitbread Memorial Prize. This award is a prestigious decoration for a GCSE student who has demonstrated an exceptional performance, both academically and beyond the classroom, over the previous school year.
For me, this year, there was only ever going to be one contender at the College, and a quite frankly unique student at that: Aditya.
I was thinking back to my first meeting with him online prior to his enrollment as he went through the same admissions process as all students who join EIC. Then living in Singapore, his polite, considered responses answered my questions about his interests in and out of lessons made me think he’d fit in at Ealing well. When we met for a second time, after he had swiftly completed his assessments, it wasn’t his impressive test scores which I remember most immediately. Rather, it was his incredible levels of preparedness for moving to the UK. In between interviews, he had been adjusting the air conditioning in his bedroom to imitate the temperature in London each day so that he would be able to acclimatise seamlessly.
Quickly he made friends at the College, and quickly it became apparent that he was an exceptional student. Students like Aditya are absolutely vital within a College like ours, a College which has a GCSE population consisting of three cohorts, or three types of students: those capable of scoring a string of 8s and 9s in their exams; those more in the 6-7 category, in less subjects; and those who need to push themselves and utilise every bit of support they can to score grade 4 and above.
Being in that first cohort of students, but with the ‘reach’ and kind, considerate manner to have friends in each of the sections, Aditya is a student who can drive standards up at Ealing just through his being in a class. He asks the right questions, he supports his peers if they are struggling to grasp a problem and he lets it be known, in an appropriate manner, if he feels that the level of challenge isn’t high enough. He shows those students, who have perhaps never seen such things before they come to Ealing, what can be done if one applies oneself to the fullest.
I used to think that it was somehow ‘cheating’ in teaching if students were supporting their peers in lessons, or even taking part of the lessons – that teachers were passing the buck in class by doing so – but now I see it rather as an indication of the strength of the culture within a school when students successfully take the lead. That’s one of the reasons why I integrated the three key words which define the College – Empowerment, Inclusivity, Community.
Aditya has come to embody these words, and so the spirit of the College.
In terms of empowerment, it is difficult to hold up a greater example of it. Academically, Aditya pushed to do 12 GCSEs – because he wanted to extend himself. This included the College, in his time, adding new subjects to accommodate such an undertaking, like Sociology and Further Maths, which were not there when he started. Aditya was the only student in the entire institution who did not have a ‘supervised study’ period on his timetable last year – his timetable was utterly full. That 10 of his results were either grade 8 or grade 9 says much about the high standards he kept throughout the exam period – one could count the days on one hand that he wasn’t in. (He must have at least 30 different papers to sit) He never once grumbled – though he did honestly say that he was tired towards the end – and he persevered until the end, ensuring a truly excellent return for his efforts.
What next?
Well, Aditya wasn’t going to be satisfied with doing 4 A Levels. He made it clear to me that if he were to stay at Ealing, he would be looking to do 5. So I happily agreed, provided two of the five were Maths and Further Maths. He has started exceptionally well in all of his subjects. His current Months Marks feedback reads as follows:
Physics – Attainment A Effort 1
History – Attainment A Effort 1
Economics – Attainment A Effort 1
Maths (he has moved straight on to Year 13) – Attainment A Effort 1
Simply put, he can’t get any better in terms of academic output.
What is more pleasing than such a superb display of academic acumen and appliance for me is everything else he does in College. He supports me in taking the Year 11 students to Physical Education sessions along with a couple of other Year 12 students – not because I told him to, but because he wants to. In fact, he is the only one that I can truly depend on to ask if I want a hand in wheeling the equipment bag to the sports facilities.
He was the first student to gain a Supervised Study Exemption card this year – again, not something which was going to make a huge difference to him. But he wanted to achieve it, so why not. To complete the challenge successfully, which allows freedom within the College over where one studies, he had to obtain a teacher ‘sign off’ on 10 good pieces of work. Aditya breezed through this in about a week.
Aditya has also taken on the role of mentor for GCSE students at the College with a degree of thoughtful and methodical discipline. Though he is officially linked to two students, he seems to have, in fact, created a wider study group of around 5. Within that five is a girl who was homeschooled from last year who has significant gaps in her Physics knowledge who he is keen to support, another girl, incredibly capable, who just needs some moral support from time to time, and a boy, who everyone rather feared might be an issue this year, who has been extremely productive. One reason for that has to be down to Aditya. After one mentoring session, he was able to deduce the student’s key issue in their weakest subject area, and set to working through it.
If I were to sum up Aditya’s importance to the College in two words, then that would be easy: role model.
He gets everything, whether big or small, right. And he always says thank you.
As for a Principal, he gives a great deal of reassurance that we, as a College, are doing a lot of things right: academically; pastorally; in a supportive sense; at the sharp end of our teaching.
Seeing such an approach, from such a talented student within the setting we have, is truly inspiring – for staff and students. He may not win the award I have put him forward for, but, as the guidelines for the award itself state, ‘to be nominated is an achievement within itself.’
To be have made the positive impact which Aditya has at the College can be classed as an achievement – and a very special one.