TV and Radio presenter, author and Founder of the Happy Place blog, podcast and festival, Fearne Cotton was the guest speaker at our Senior Prizegiving Evening in early September.
This annual event rewards achievements in academic and sporting spheres of all kinds across the 15s, the Lower and Upper Sixth age groups. It is strategically timed in the early autumn both to mark the summer successes of GCSE students progressing into the Sixth Form and to celebrate the A Level performance of our outgoing Sixth Formers before they depart for university.
With no fewer than 113 prizes to present, ranging from age-specific individual prizes in every subject area to Sixth Form Exhibitions and Scholarships, our guest speaker certainly had a busy evening of it. But after completing her prizegiving duties, Fearne Cotton still had plenty of energy left to give an inspirational speech to the assembled students and parents.
Speaking from the heart, she drew on a life journey that had carried her from the ups of a successful career as a Radio 1 presenter, through struggles with mental health to new fulfillment as the founder and driving force behind Happy Place, a podcast and now a festival dedicated to celebrating 'all things that make us HAPPY'. The thrust of her advice to Harrodians in search of fulfilling careers was to aim high, to not take no for an answer and to be resilient in pursuing success without ever losing sight of the vital things, both big and small, that really bring happiness.
Picture: Top, Upper Sixth Formers Thea and Lorenzo compare trophies for Italian and Economics.