International pupil, Feyi, is a prefect in Year 13 has been at Sedbergh since year 9. She’s studying for Maths, Physics and Art A-levels and would like to be an architect.
I love art and being able to just think anything. But having maths and physics in the order of that and having a right and wrong answer, I think is very important for me. So, I have art which is very subjective and subjects where you’re either very wrong or you’re very right. I like having that balance between them.
Feyi talks about how School has changed for her going into sixth form and her ambitions for after she leaves Sedbergh.
How does it feel going into upper six? Does it feel different?
It’s terrifying! Especially because I’ve been here since year nine and I’ve seen people in upper six and you never really think anything of it until you are in that position. Getting here is just a strange feeling.
It’s more work, but more time. Everything is happening at the same time and there’s a lot going on. Sometimes it’s rewarding, and you feel like you know what you’re doing, everything’s structured, you are really organized and then other at times you’re like, this is too much for me. I think knowing the balance and knowing yourself and knowing where you can draw your line and know when things get too much for you is part of being a year 13 and part of preparing you for the outside world and whatever you’re going to go do later on.
Do you feel that the teachers treat you differently?
Yes, I get along much better with my teachers. I can go sit down and it’ll be like a lunchtime or free time, and have a conversation. For example, I was in a lib today, this morning in physics, and Mr. Appleton came in and I just went and asked, oh, how’d you do that? It was just chilled; you can have conversations with them and everyone’s happier.
There’s some things I feel like teachers can’t say to year nines but they can say it to you. Even ways of describing things, how complicated they’re getting is just different. The closer you are, the more familiar you are. We were talking to another one of my physics teachers, Mr. Mather, and he said, I just take things for granted; the fact that you guys just understand these things and the fact that you can just grasp things.
He teaches year nine as well. He explained what it was like going from teaching year 9 to teaching year 13, knowing that he can explain something to us and we get it. It’s just different. And I think that you have to have the foundation of having a good relationship with your teachers to learn better. I think a lot of teaching depends on your relationship with the teacher as well.
Do you feel that throughout your time and particularly now in year 13, that you are given the room, the space to grow, to develop?
Yes, fully. And I feel like there is a very good support system for that as well; the people as well as the friends you surround yourself with. You are all growing together and although it’s at different paces, we’re all trying to find ourselves and see things we like, that we don’t like, things we’re good at, things we’re not good at. Your friends help you discover that yourself and the people you surround yourself with help you as well. And I think teachers play a big part in helping you get through that.
Did you find it easy to find ‘your people’ at Sedbergh?
Yeah, I did. I’ve been friends with two of my friends since I was in year nine; they know my parents, I know their parents, I’ve stayed at theirs, I’ve gone on a holiday with them. This has been since year 9, from the very first. Even meeting people in lower six – there are some people that I have the closest relationships with, the closest friendships – and I only met them last year.
Also, I went to Pembroke (a small boarding school in Kenya) so I’ve known some of my best friends since Pembroke because they’re are here as well. I also knew people in years above me that knew me and that I knew. For example, I’ve known Mr. Oliver for say, nearly 10 years now because I was in Pembroke and he used to come and visit. So knowing people I think helped me.
What do you want to do after Sedbergh?
I want to be an architect, but I don’t feel like that’s what I’ll end up doing. I know I’ll go to school to study it, but I feel like in a few years I might be living in the middle of nowhere working for some nonprofit organisation in a forest in South America. I feel like that’s where life might take me. And I feel like Sedbergh is very good for that.
You have support for whatever you want to do. I feel like Sedbergh prepares you to pursue something if you want to.
How has Sedbergh prepared you?
I think back to what I was saying about having a good support system as well as providing resources. I also think the connections the school has, they help you branch out. You can find your own connections, but if you’re not too sure, they can give you ideas that are actually relevant to you and set you on the right path. Because getting on the right path, I feel like is the difficult part. And I think Sedbergh School is very good at being like, it’s okay if you want to do this and it’s okay if you don’t know what you want to do, but you could do this – something like a degree apprenticeship.
Mr. Lucas, Ms. Roland. So they’re all very, very good, as well as our own personal tutors. So right now I’m nearly finished with my UCAS applications, but because I want to do architecture, I have to have a portfolio. So I’m getting that done with Ms. Bell.
Do you feel that participating in the School’s many academic societies has helped you to build life skills?
Oh, a hundred percent. Especially debating. No one talks about that enough. I know it’s really nice. You wear a nice dress and you come and you sit down and you argue with your friends! Afterwards, I feel more confident; I know I can talk to people and I know I can disagree and get my point across. I know I can research things and actually present those ideas.
When you are in year 10 and year 11 and you are writing in English and you are debating things on paper, it’s fine. But actually having to say things out loud, the skill that requires and the skill that debating gives you, is a really, really big thing. Public speaking research and also skills that are very vital. Once you’re in uni, in later stages in life.
Do you enjoy working with the younger pupils?
I do. I find it very fascinating and I like seeing people where I once was; I’m trying to make year nine fun for them because I remember year nine and I remember really enjoying whatever was put on for us or whatever we had to do. So, trying to replicate that and make it better, I really enjoy seeing them like things that I used to like. I think it’s so rewarding.
Have you got a short-list of universities you’d like to apply to?
Yes. So my top is University College London. I’m praying I get in. My next one is the University of Leeds. I’ve got a lower offer because of my EPQ so they’ve reduced my grade. Also, Leeds has gone up to second in terms of architecture (behind Cambridge), so it’s really good. Then Edinburgh to do interior design and University of Arts London. So that’s properly just art. I’m still thinking about that because I don’t know. I did work experience over the summer and I was speaking to the head of the firm – he went to Oxford – and he warned me to be careful about going to an art university if I want to study architecture because you don’t want to surround yourself with people that don’t do other things. You need to see more people that do, I don’t know, chemistry and not surround yourself with people that do solely art. So that’s been playing quite a big part in my thinking.
Tell me about the 3 weeks of work experience you did over summer? Did that inspire you?
Oh a hundred percent. I did my work experience back in Nigeria when I went home for summer. Seeing things come to life from paper to foundations being dug and people saying things like this isn’t going to work, it’s not balanced; we have to redo this. And having electrical engineers arguing with plumbers … it was invaluable to see.
I thought, oh, I’ll be just stapling things! But I was properly working. I was being taken to sites, seeing the problems that they come across that we don’t necessarily see. I got to see projects that haven’t even been released on the news yet. I went to a lot of places that I’ve never seen before.
Work experience isn’t a requirement for applying to architecture although School obviously mentioned that if you can find work experience, try it. I got lucky finding something that was specific to what I want to do while I was at home [over the summer break]. It was really good and obviously applicable.
How important has sports been to you at Sedbergh?
Very! When we were in year nine and ten, we get to try everything, and I think that’s vital because at Pembroke we played hockey, we played netball and we played rounders – although I have always stuck with tennis.
I just really enjoy playing in the team and even when it’s not summer I played tennis during my libs. I enjoy the support of tennis because it’s not only with coaches in school. I have coaches that come from outside of school and they’re so supportive; I’ve improved so much. It was really nice to me to have that support.
I used to play netball in year 11. I played for the A’s and everyone knows netball, it’s a lot and it’s very intense, and having coaches that are in school that would maybe have seen you for sport can get very intense. So that’s why loads of people stop playing netball sadly, because it gets a bit too much with them.
But I think it gets that way when you have a sport at the school that’s such high quality and plays at high levels because half of the team plays for England or plays for thunder and other teams. So I think you have to watch out for that balance of are you playing the sport for fun or you playing sport because you want to play for England in a few years.
But that’s what I like about tennis, it’s mostly just you and you can control your progress. If you play badly one day you haven’t let six other people down!
What challenges do you feel that you are facing on your pathway?
I think it’s good to face challenges because then you overcome them and you learn from them. I think most of the challenge is in learning how to balance everything that’s going on, it’s not necessarily because we’re all getting cleverer and getting ahead and learning things better, but it’s the juggling everything at the same time and making sure you are performing to the best of your ability. Everyone has a level in their head that they always want to get to. Learning how to get there and get there in your sport or get there in your extracurriculars and maintain that in your academics is what I think is difficult.
Knowing that if when you need to sleep, you need to sleep. When you need a nap, you need a nap. And when you need to get up in bed and read a book, you can do that and you balance that to make sure you can keep going. I think that’s really important. I think that’s the challenge I face; learning to balance. So I don’t get too overwhelmed. I feel like it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and be like, what do I do now?
Learning not to get really frantic and beat yourself up; especially when winter time table comes along and it’s longer dark days and but when I come back from dinner, it’s still straight to choir and learning how to sort everything out and balance everything feels more difficult.
Which of the School values do you most identify with?
I’d say resilience. Because I think it’s very, you learn what kind of person someone is from, how they overcome their challenges and how strong they stay in certain situations or things that happen.
I think I’m a very resilient person because I can power through, I can keep going. And whether it’s academic, sport, school life or anything, being able to keep going, being able to pick yourself up and say, come on, you’ve got this, keep going, do that. You can do it.
And I think it also ties into being ambitious because if you can stand your ground and you can say, I can power through this, you are looking into the future and you set your goals and you are like, I’m powering through and I’m going to get there. I’m going to climb that hill, climb that mountain and I’m going to reach that and I’m going to have that ambition, but I’m going to be resilient, I’m going to be strong and I’m going to be true to who I am. I think those resonate with me quite bit.