School exchange: Adeyfield Academy

To encourage students to step out of their comfort zones, enhance their leadership skills, and build a mutually beneficial relationship with a local school, Berkhamsted recently co-hosted an exchange day with Adeyfield Academy in Hemel Hempstead.

Prefects from Adeyfield visited Berkhamsted in the morning where they enjoyed classroom shadowing and engaged in leadership sessions. After lunch, they travelled back to Adeyfield Academy with Berkhamsted’s students for an exciting session on presentation skills and entrepreneurship.

With the guidance of Ms Attfield, Mr Thompson, and Mrs Miles, students began the day in a learning and leadership session. Berkhamsted Prefects began the morning with an engaging icebreaker. The ‘get to know me’ session saw pupils rotate around the room, asking light-hearted questions like “If you could choose one superpower, what would it be?” Ms Attfield explained that by confidently communicating with strangers, the students were already demonstrating important employability skills.

Berkhamsted’s Prefects and Learning Leaders led insightful sessions with Adeyfield’s students on metacognition and emotional intelligence. They discussed how these skills have improved their learning and used their communication skills to teach Adeyfied’s students how to apply these to their lives.

The session concluded with Mrs Chatwin, Assistant Head of Sixth, leading a session on ChatGPT. Students were excited to learn that they could transform ChatGPT into their personal revision tutor!

In the afternoon, Berkhamsted’s Sixth Prefects travelled to Adeyfield where they were welcomed by the Prefects for a tour. Adeyfield’s Head of Sixth, Mr Cook, then led an engaging ‘Dragon’s Den’ inspired session where students collaborated to create a pitch to solve a problem in the local area. The students embraced adventure and presented their engaging pitches to the rest of the team.

When asked about the experience, students from both schools were enthusiastic about the opportunity to network and learn alongside new people. “At Sixth you end up seeing the same people every day”, said one of Berkhamsted’s Prefects, “So today has been a great opportunity to meet and socialise with new people”.

We look forward to growing our relationship with Adeyfield Academy and watching students from both schools flourish through interactions with students in the local area!