Alumni Share their Industry Knowledge

Thank you to those members of our alumni community who came back to Alleyn’s to share their industry knowledge with pupils at the Alleyn’s Festival of Inspiration on Thursday 22 June.

The Festival of Inspiration, now in its second year, is a dynamic and interactive careers event giving all Alleyn’s Senior School pupils, and pupils from local partner schools including Trinity Academy in Brixton, the opportunity to benefit from the first-hand industry knowledge of visiting experts including Alleyn’s alumni, current and former parents, and friends of the School.

Throughout the day, pupils were encouraged to embrace “career curiosity” and learn about different career paths. From AI to theatre skills and acting, medical chemistry to product design and fashion as well as responding to a humanitarian crisis and starting a business, the day covered a wide variety of industries under six key themes - Creative Industries, Enterprise, Environment/Sustainability, Social Impact, Technology and Wellbeing.

Amongst the professionals to share their knowledge and insight we were delighted to welcome back Philip Johnson (Cribb’s 1981), who ran a Product Design Workshop, Tim Danaher (Tulley’s 1994) who provided a Media Training Taster workshop, Nigel Godfrey (Spurgeon’s 1982) who ran a workshop about a career in acting and the media, and Casting Director, Aisha Bywaters (Brown’s 2002) who gave personalised advice and guidance from the mini-Careers Fair section.

In his workshop, actor, director and producer, Nigel Godfrey encouraged pupils to be resilient when trying to break into a career in the media, explaining that he didn’t get into any of the drama schools he applied to, but he kept on going. He impressed upon pupils the value of networking, reassuring them that networking is not a big and frightening thing, it is just talking to people. And he also talked about the opportunities that Alleyn’s gave him, including connections to other actors who he found to be very encouraging and supportive. He urged pupils to seize any opportunities that arose, and explained that doing so himself led to him directing his first commercial starring the one and only Michael Cain!

Alumnus Philip Johnson ran a product design workshop with his colleague Lise Pape from Innovate UK. They shared their design process and the importance of user testing in their design engineering projects, which include creating smart insoles which track someone’s walking style and help with mobility and health issues. They encouraged pupils to ‘fake it before you make it’ and to be confident in their ideas and their approaches, before facilitating an interactive team activity that required engineering a tall structure with pasta and marshmallows!

Former journalist and alumnus Tim Danaher, who is now Partner at critical issues firm Brunswick Group, led a media training taster session, asking pupils: ‘If you were Prime Minister, how would you respond to challenging questions?’ and giving them valuable insight into stakeholder engagement.

Alongside the workshops, pupils had the chance to gain individual advice during conversations at the Careers Fair stations in the quad. Amongst the stands was casting director and alumna, Aisha Bywaters. Aisha has several hugely successful TV and film credits to her name and in 2022, she won a BAFTA TV Craft Award for scripted casting for TV show We Are Lady Parts. For pupils interested in exploring a career in TV and film, her advice was invaluable.

Thank you to all of our alumni for giving up their time to share their knowledge with pupils. It is inspiring sessions like these that can spark pupils’ interests in industries and opportunities, and an exciting career path they might never have considered.