James Pearson

James joined Framlingham College in the Lower 6th and quickly found himself having to balance commitments in the various aspects of boarding school life. He soon found himself being given responsibilities in Garrett House and within the school as a whole. Of Garrett, he says, “my House has been home to many of my best moments and my best friends. I have thoroughly enjoyed the boarding life, and it’s put me in good stead for life at university”. As Head of Sport he thoroughly enjoyed being responsible for organising any team taking part in house competitions. Then, in his final year, he was made a school prefect, and enjoyed the challenge of organising events across the school and of representing the student body within the College.

It’s always been the sporting field, though, that has appealed most strongly to James. He achieved success in many different sports and at many different levels, representing the 1st teams in both rugby and cricket (including captaining the 1st cricket XI). Cricket is, without doubt, his favourite sport, where career highlights so far include representing Norfolk at youth level and playing for Swardeston, a highly successful East Anglian cricket club.

James isn’t just a promising sportsman, however. Economics is a highly topical subject in which he’s become passionately interested over the course of his A-level studies. He says, “I was fortunate to have an inspirational teacher and, as I started the subject, I was delighted to find I could see examples of what I was learning in use everywhere. That, and the fact that economics is so influential in everyday life meant that I became very keen on the subject, up until the point where I felt that it was the right subject for me to study at university”.

In fact, James tends to look at the world around him very much from an economist’s perspective. He’s travelled quite widely both on holidays and on school trips to France, Spain and Austria, though his most interesting and enjoyable journeys were to Sri Lanka and Russia (St. Petersburg), countries with very different cultures and economies. He says, “it was intriguing to see how post-soviet Russia was developing under the new regime, despite many apparent reminders of the communist era still in evidence. Sri Lanka was a stark contrast to both Western and Eastern Europe; it had huge cultural diversity and an extreme gulf between rich and poor”.

In the future, he hopes to be able to make use of an economics degree by working in the financial services industry – just so long as it allows plenty of time for cricket!

Looking forward to his role as a Moreau Leaving Scholar, James says, “the scholarships will help me and Becca to ensure that our year-group keeps in touch, and we both plan to do everything we can to maintain a strong network of friends who shared the experience of life at Fram”.