GDST Young Leaders’ Conference at the Royal High School Bath

A group of Sixth Form students from Sheffield Girls’, including the Head Girl team, were put through their paces by leaders from all walks of life at an ‘Apprentice’-style leadership event in October. Now in its seventh year, the GDST (Girls’ Day school Trust) Young Leaders’ Conference, which takes place at The Royal High School Bath, aims to help students develop tangible life and leadership skills, including teamwork, communication, negotiation, problem solving and financial management that will benefit them when they embark on their chosen careers.

Teresa Snook described the experience: ‘Our weekend at the Young Leaders’ Conference at the Royal High School Bath was an intense, yet extremely inspiring experience. We were placed out of our comfort zone into mixed teams and dormitories with girls from other GDST schools, which may have been daunting but we took it in our stride to develop new friends and network across the GDST.’

The ‘Apprentice’ style challenge of creating a digital marketing campaign for one of four small charities allowed the girls to contribute to our respective teams in different roles. The opportunity to speak publicly, which the girls found extremely rewarding, came on the Sunday as they presented their campaigns. Emily Wyman in particular excelled at this, giving an emotive and exciting opener to her team’s campaign presentation, and it was an immensely proud moment when she led the team to victory!

Cheryl Giovannoni, CEO of the GDST, said: “Effective leadership simply comes down to getting the best out of people so that, together, we can drive positive change. At the Girls’ Day School Trust, we are committed to inspiring the next generation of leaders. We need to broaden our view of leadership, to embrace a whole host of skills and qualities that are sometimes undervalued, like communication, collaboration, effective delegation, creativity, and empathy. So my message – no, my challenge – to all our young leaders is, if you don’t like the leaders we have, become the leaders you want.”

Eva Koffi, Teresa Snook, Emily Wyman and Lydia Blackburn (Head Girl Team)