Over the first few days of the October half-term break, the school became an international conference centre, with our Heads of Secretariat, Toni Alao, Zara Aspland, Caitlin Robinson and Thomas Mullen and their team welcoming several hundreds of pupils and staff from schools in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Romania, Japan and California. There was a definite sense of excitement and purpose across the campus as students gathered in their committees to take part in a range of debates on topics such as the question of the threat from Artificial Intelligence, the question of reform of the IMF and World Bank, the question of phasing out non-renewable energy production, the question of the freedom of the press, the question of the regulation of outer space, the question of gender equality, the question of the role of the UN in ensuring international humanitarian rule of law, amongst other pressing global issues. Manha Chaudhry (Ambassador), Archer Stephen, Kalan Sharma, Joseph Soya-Bongay, Rayhaan Kufuor-Gray and William Watford represented Guyana, whilst Keira Rudich (Ambassador), Tulsi Patel, Angeline Biju and Lana Lam represented Japan. Jessica Patel, Katie Steele and Alexei Vorontsov led the Media team who produced fantastic videos and our unique MUN’s Got Talent show with the new addition of Taskmaster, for all participants to enjoy. Elena Buckingham and Elspeth Gardiner led the Press Team who produced four excellent editions of The Delegate, our MUN Newspaper. We had a very strong team of Chairs, leading the debates and guiding the delegates in committees: Logan Hatchwell-Wray (Special Political Committee 1), Jamie McDowall (Special Political Committee 2), Emilie Marshall-Tate (Special Commission on AI), Thomas Grehan and Vasily Van Vloten (Environment), George Skinner and Joseph Venkatasami (Human Rights 1), Raza Ali Jafri (Human Rights 2) and Ehaan Nadeem (Disarmament and Security 2). Kira Diakiv and Johan Prinsloo were very impressive Presidents of the Security Council, leading the debates on the construction of resolutions on the crucial questions of Gaza, Ukraine and Kashmir. Along our main conference, a group of students took part in a trial in the International Court of Justice, a memorable experience for Dominique Shved who was one of the Judges on the case. Our Senior Officers led the conference with unwavering professionalism, kindness, generosity and diplomacy – congratulations to Zakariya Ali-Hughes, Oliver Bennett and Rohan Phillpot, our wonderful Presidents of the General Assembly and Zoë Spellings and Uliana Tokolova, our incredible Secretaries General, for all their hard work. Thank you to all the students who took part and all the staff for their assistance. A special mention to Mr Kay and the Design and Technology Department for the fantastic new placards they created for our General Assembly.
