After months of planning and preparation, we were absolutely thrilled to hold our first ever TEDx event at Nottingham Girls’ High School. Entitled ‘What can our Humanity bring to the Greater Good’ the event featured speakers from the school community including staff, students and alumnae, plus performances by the Chamber Choir, our Musician in Residence, and the Hubbub Theatre Company.

The thread of ‘humanity’ ran through all of the presentations and performances, and we were totally blown away and inspired by what we heard and saw on the night. With close to 100 influential guests from the school and local community in attendance at the Squire Performing Arts Centre, it was a night to remember for all involved.

We were so proud of the participating Sixth Form students who showed great confidence and maturity at such a big event. Our MC for the evening was Aminah from Year 12 who did an amazing job of introducing each section theme, and shared her own thoughts on humanity:

“When I think of what humanity brings to the greater good, the first thing that comes to mind is empathy . . one of the most important skills we can possess and show to each other as human beings.”

The first theme was ‘Community: Building Safe Spaces with a Shared Purpose,’ and our first speaker was our Head, Julie Keller. She spoke as a leader of the school, about her views on redefining leadership and how good leaders should incorporate wellbeing and choice:

“We must educate girls to lead but be in control of their choices and demonstrate how wellbeing completely sits with this.”

It was a brilliant, honest and thought-provoking opening speech, and you can watch it here: 

The audience was hooked and ready to hear our second speaker, Sixth Form student Feizah, who spoke about de-colonising the curriculum. Feizah had a remarkable stage presence and had everyone’s full attention as she tackled the issue of how education needs to become more inclusive:

“Every shift in the political climate, every development on the global stage affects individuals differently – be that due to their sexuality, gender, race or economic background – and it’s essential that we’re willing to reflect these changes within the curriculum.”

It was a fantastic talk, well-informed, educational and delivered superbly:

We then welcomed onto the stage, the Hubbub Theatre Company with ‘The (not so) Quiet Revolution of Kindness.’ Hubbub, based in Derby, is one of the UK’s leading learning disability theatre companies whose mission is to help learning disabled people overcome barriers that prevent them from accessing creative opportunities at all levels. They were wonderful and delivered their message of inclusivity in a creative and theatrical fashion to a warmly receptive audience:

Time for our second theme, ‘Connection: Overcoming Division through a United Dialogue’ and our next speaker, Claire Bale. Claire is the Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for the Girls’ Day School Trust, and Inclusion Lead here at NGHS. Her regular appearances on local TV and radio, together with her anti-racist blog, help her to deliver a message that is very close to her heart:

“We all have the power to connect more deeply with the world around us. A world that needs positive change.”

Claire spoke passionately about her own experiences and inspired all of us to think about how changing our consumption of literature and media can open our minds. Watch the video here: 

This was followed by our next Sixth Form speaker, Ela, who did an incredible job of talking about an often-avoided subject – periods. Ela was confident and clear in her messaging about period poverty and the stigma attached to menstruation and demonstrated what she is doing, and we should all be doing, to change this. Watch her here: 

A stunning performance of The Rhythm of Life by our Chamber Choir followed, leading us into the interval and the chance to reflect and discuss, and enjoy some legendary NGHS hospitality. See and hear the Chamber Choir’s performance here: 

Our MC, Aminah, welcomed us back and introduced theme three, ‘Creativity: The Irreplaceable Human Superpower’ and our next speaker, Sudha Kheterpal. As well as being an alumna of the school, Sudha has had an  amazing career including playing percussion with Faithless and The Spice Girls among others, and she’s also an entrepreneur and experienced TEDx speaker already. Her talk had us all up on our feet as she gave us her three hacks on ‘How to Speak Up and Stand in Your Space’ including some very useful advice:

“Practise embracing failure and learn from your mistakes, and through this you will develop deep empathy for others and in today’s world, that really makes a difference.”

Watch Sudha’s inspirational talk here: 

Next on stage was our fabulously talented Musician in Residence, Emily Trease, who left NGHS last year but is staying on in the Music Department until she begins university. Emily treated us to an incredible performance of Blackbird by The Beatles on the electronic harp, demonstrating exactly why creativity is totally irreplaceable. Watch Emily’s performance here: 

And finally to theme four, ‘Courage: Overcoming Convention with Conviction’ and our concluding speaker, Summaya Mughal. Summaya is a Senior BBC TV/Radio Presenter, Journalist, Actor-Musician and award-winning Podcast host  of ‘Brown Gal Can’t Swim’; she’s also an NGHS alumna. Summaya gave a humorous yet very moving talk about her life here as a Pakistani Muslim woman and having the courage of her convictions when making life and career choices. It really was a wonderful talk with which to end our extraordinary event and you can watch it here: 

All in all, we had the most amazing evening and are so grateful to all of our speakers, performers and guests. We hope that everyone was as inspired as we were, and still are! Our humanity clearly brings a lot to the greater good in so many different and varied ways through community, connection, creativity and courage. We’re all unique but our humanity is what we all have in common. Used in the right way, this ‘superpower’ we all possess can help the world become a better place and it is without doubt, irreplaceable.