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My KES bursary undoubtedly had a major impact on my life, granting me the opportunity to attend a private school and to experience a different world of education to my peers from work or primary school.
However, I want to emphasise that the impact only starts with me. The bursary uplifted everyone around me. Not only have I done it, but we have done it: my teachers, my friends, my family, my communities. Yes, the acceptance letter was addressed to me and my family but I believe that was a mistake. It was not only me who was accepted into KES that day. It was not only me who went to private school. It was not only me who attended each lesson. Each day, I used one ID card but I was taking my communities with me. That is the power of the KES bursary.
It is not everyday someone like me gets opportunities. I have seen it first-hand, how kids like me are failed by the systems around us, left and stuck, with no hopes of ‘better’. In Year 6, when I received the acceptance letter from KES, I felt seen. It was a monumental turn for me, a chance to escape a life that was once destined for me and reach for places many may say I do not belong. It was like closing a chapter to open a new one, the start of a new journey - and it truly was.
My family and I had never been on holidays, not like my Year 7 classmates who were able to name multiple countries they had visited and explored. However, at KES, I went camping for the first time, a taste of true independence and spending time away from my close-knit family unit. I went to France. I studied not one, but two languages. I went to my first musical, igniting my love for the theatre. KES gave me many firsts, experiences I could not have dreamed of having back in primary school. Back then, I had known and accepted that opportunities like these were not open to me, but attending King Edward VI School made it possible.
Now that I have started LLB Law at UCL, I can look back on the child I was and compare to the young woman I have become. I believe I am still the opinionated, confident person who walked into KES, but my personality and drive was not shunned nor quietened whilst at KES - in fact they were nurtured. Yet, I am someone who has, through school, existed in two different worlds at once, met people with experiences so different to mine and has been pushed to aim high. I joined KES with few experiences and even if I wasn’t a fan of some (like the tortuous Road Run), I left KES with a million.
And that, in my view, is the power of the KES bursary. Though I have never met the donors who have kindly funded places like mine, I hope they know how grateful I have been.
