The Raising Aspirations Workshop was an enlightening experience with a focus on preparing me for the real world. It was a great way to delve into self-improvement. The range of activities all focused on key aspects such as exploring my goals, interests and reviewing the way I can become an ambitious young man. One activity which really struck me was the letter written to my future self. This activity emphasised the reality of time passing so quickly and helped me to record the aspirations I would like to accomplish in the near future. 

Sakariya Yusuf [10B] 

There were many activities that made us see how people actually saw us and how they weren't negative in the way that we may have thought. I think that hearing many positive comments helped to raise people's confidence. Furthermore, the stories he told us were inspirational and it seemed that many people were able to relate to them.  We had an activity where we were split into groups and were given a character. We were asked to talk about what the character’s hobbies could be and their characteristics. The characters were given different outcomes in life, which showed that some of us clearly thought the area we came from defined us, but it wasn't true. He shared that he came from an area where people didn't think anyone could start a business or even do a full-time job and that he wanted to prove them wrong and so he did as he started and now runs his own business. This inspired me because the area you live in doesn't have to define you at all, but your everyday decisions do. 

Maria Galawinge [10G] 

The Revolution Hive Workshop was brilliant and an excellent way for students to develop beyond our academics, teaching us valuable life skills that will benefit us in the future. I believe that Revolution Hive did as they promised they would with us by increasing students' self-motivation and aspirations. The experience was really enjoyable and fun. The teacher himself was really funny, helped every student engage in the tasks and gave us individual advice too. One of the most exciting aspects of the workshop was the collaboration and working with individuals from different backgrounds. For example, during our group project we brainstormed ideas to improve local sustainability efforts which allowed us to combine our unique perspectives. I found this incredible and believe that every student should do the Revolution Hive Workshop! 

Osbourne Fernandes [10O]

The Raising Aspirations Workshop was an excellent way to improve ourselves. The activities we partook in helped us learn more about our own interests, goals, ambitions and how to become more confident, dedicated and disciplined in planning and preparing for our future. One of the activities we did was creating a character board for ourselves containing ambitions for what we want ourselves to look like and be like in 10 years' time. Another activity was to write a letter to ourselves in the future and what we’ve achieved and worked towards. We also made a new timetable to make time for us to be able to do things to work towards our goals instead of wasting time. We had a lesson in confidence and how to be more confident in social settings. We also did a fun activity which included learning about the most well-known and successful habits of many successful people. The workshop allowed us to gain an insight into how we can work better towards our goals and how we can apply different techniques to help us achieve better in our GCSEs, A-Levels and future jobs, as well as making us realise the importance of thinking about where we want to be and what we want to achieve, and the importance of planning and carrying out steps to achieve these goals. 

Sahil Kotak [10P] 

The day started with some activities, such as talking about moral values. For example, think about what we would do if we saw a homeless person on the street. Another activity involved writing positive things we liked about other people. I really liked this activity since I saw what people liked about me and raised my self-confidence. I had a lot of fun answering questions and communicating with others. They also talked about what we might want to do in the future and gave us a collage making activity to consider what we want our house to be, future job, future family, etc. This really helped me to realise what I want in my future and what I aspire to be. Furthermore, I think this has also helped more young people like me who don’t know what they want in the future as a way of assisting us to realise what we want to be. 

Ariana Fasih [10Y]