Parents, staff, fellow students and local business people saw the culmination of five months’ hard work on Tuesday 26 March when the ‘Who Asks Us?’ group presented a ‘Question Time’ style evening in the main hall. Back in the Autumn term, they began a project with education consultant, Jill Barton and Paul Press, a film maker from the Offshoot Foundation, to explore the complex issue of students, exam pressures and preparation for future employment.

During the course of the past 15 weeks, the students involved have been very busy making a film to highlight their own concerns over exam pressures and to carry out their own research into how local businesses perceive the value of GCSEs. This has meant learning skills of script writing, presenting to camera and then editing a large amount of material to end up with a polished 25 minute finished article.

The group decided that the best way to show this small film was to invite an audience to the Academy and then to hold a question and answer session to discuss the key issues in more detail. The distinguished panel was made up of Jane Gould (Holbrook Academy Chair of Governors), Ken MacDonald (DM Retail, Waitrose), Callum Frogley (Year 11 student), David Wood (local councillor), Alan Whittaker (Principal, Suffolk One) and the debate was chaired by Rachel Sloane.

None of the panel knew the questions in advance and a stimulating hour of debate followed the film with each panellist bringing their own particular slant to their responses. The evening concluded with a superb finger buffet prepared by academy catering students and Mrs Law. Highly professional, insightful and intelligently put together, the whole evening was a triumph on every level. Very well done to all involved.

Mr D Hall