NSPCC is Marvin’s chosen charity for this year and they chose The Harefield Academy as the location to film promotion for the charity’s Childline service. He wanted to come along and help with the training and meet out students. Not only that, he asked to take an assembly.

 

 

 

Senior staff managed to keep his visit secret from staff and students, and the buzz of excitement was electrifying on Wednesday morning. Students in Grey-Thompson and Coe houses were the lucky audience to one of the most exciting assembly’s yet at The Academy.

 

 

Students were able to ask the JLS star anything they wanted. They fielded him questions about everything from what it was like to perform in front of Simon Cowell and the rest of the X Factor judges, to what in life scares him the most and whether he was bullied at school.

 

 

 

The students were extremely mature and asked some amazing questions, finding out lots about the pop star. We discovered that not only can Marvin sing, he has an incredible 13 A*-C GCSEs and his favourite subjects at school were Food Technology and Business Studies.

 

 

One JLS super-fan, Shannon Jarman, in Year 8, had “the best day of her life so far”, when she asked her idol to sing the chorus of their single “Everybody in Love” and Marvin sang acoustically for her, and the rest of the theatre. After the incredibly inspiring assembly Marvin asked to meet Shannon, and thanked her for supporting JLS, and much to her delight, he took off his famous ‘JLS’ hoodie and gave it to her, along with a signed photograph.

 

 

 

Marvin and the film crew spent the whole day at The Harefield Academy, talking to students and walking around the grounds. They all commented on how amazing they thought it was. Marvin couldn’t believe the facilities we have and said: “I would give anything to come to a school like this, I would have travelled all the way from South East London to come here, it’s incredible.”

 

 

 

 

The question and answer session with this year’s Peer Mentors in the LRC enabled students to ask Marvin’s advice of situations like bullying, depression and achieving your dreams. The most important bit of advice he gave was: “to keep your dream alive, write down what you want to achieve in life, whether it’s a job, or a pair of trainers you want, or to get the exam results you need.” He also told students to not let people stop them reaching those goals.

 

 

 

All students and staff made the day a complete success and we hope to keep working with the NSPCC and Childline to inspire our students and give our mentors the best training possible.

 

 

Watch this space for a photo gallery and video of the day.