Joel Scott-Halkes CO10
Joel Scott-Halkes boarded at Truro School between 2003-2010 on a full scholarship, before successfully gaining a place at the University of Oxford. He is now an environmental campaigner and activist for Wild Card and RePlanet.
Environmental campaigner, strategist and activist – saving the planet one campaign at a time
Did you enjoy your time at Truro School? I had an incredible time at Truro School. As a full scholarship holder, I only really realise now, in retrospect, just how lucky I was. The diversity of education, the extra-curricular activities and the nurturing environment of the school meant I came out feeling spoilt for choice of joyful things to do with my life. Most importantly for me, during my time there, it was an incredibly creative place. When my friends and I decided we wanted to take over the art rooms to organise an acoustic charity concert, teachers bent over backwards to help make it happen and let us make our crazy plan come true. That says so much about how I remember Truro School.
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Do you have any special or specific memories of your time at Truro School? Our history teacher teaching us in gory detail about the Black Death, and getting us to have a competition for who could do the most convincing death spasm on the floor of the classroom. School plays that were so absurdly ambitious that they rivalled West End productions! Did you have any specific career dreams or aspirations? Or when did you first decide upon a particular path? I genuinely came out of Truro School inspired to try a bit of everything. I think that was the best bit; I really didn’t feel funnelled into only one life path, instead I felt quite empowered to try an unusual mix. My career ambitions were to be an artist, a filmmaker, a writer *and* a politician that changed the world. Maybe a little unrealistic now I think of it. But now, as a full-time environmental campaigner, I’ve found myself doing elements of all those careers all at once, so it kind of worked out after all...
