"A bridge between staff and students," is how Andrew Fleming sees his role as Head Boy of CedarBridge Academy. "I like to be there to listen to students and offer them direction if they're faced with a situation or there's a problem they're lost in."

The Year 4 student has had some prior experience as a mentor, having been a section leader in the CedarBridge Chamber Choir.

In addition, he helps out in the Sunday School at St Anthony's Roman Catholic Church, where he is also a member of the Roman Catholic Diocesan Choir.

Having gone through a rigorous selection process, he now finds himself in the position of role model and mentor at the local high school.

In addition to mentoring Senior 2 students, he also has 'Gate Duty', checking uniform, ID, and attitude, "Making sure the students are ready for school, that their attitude is where it should be to start a productive day."

His favourite subjects are History and Spanish, though in Year 4 the Social Studies course he's following is Citizenship rather than History.

Spanish he sees as a gateway to the wider world, especially the US East Coast, which he visits frequently, where Spanish is becoming predominant.

Travelling, in fact, is his favourite pastime, though.

"Unfortunately," he noted, "I haven't got outside the US yet, but when I go with my Mom and sister, we try to go to a different city each trip."

In addition to choral singing, Andrew is a member of the National Honours Society plays, "a little bit of tennis, and I run pretty frequently, but not in an organised way."

Partnering him in his tasks as Head Prefect is Head Girl Thoshlae Smith, also in her fourth year at the Academy.

For her, English, Biology and Math are the highlights of the school day, English because "I really enjoy creative writing."

With a career goal of either public relations or journalism, she was on the YouthNews editorial team last year. "I really like research, to be out in the community, to interact with people and to write, and these careers would allow me to do that in a wider range," she explained.

She has had to drop her participation in YouthNews "because it kinda conflicted with Tae Kwon Do" – and all the other clubs she's involved in: Student Government, the National Honours Society, the Girls Club, the Key Club, "and recently I started netball, so I'm kinda busy," she acknowledged in an understatement.

When she's not busy with her duties, clubs and school assignments, Thoshlae enjoys reading, and is currently reading "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

She sees her role at Head Girl as a leader and advisor. "If students can't relate to teachers about something at school, they can come to me or Andrew," she explained. "I can listen and give them advice from personal experience."

She believes that young people today are too wrapped up in technology, and a key issue for Bermuda's youth is the need to get out and become more involved in their community.

For Andrew, a key issue is that "so many things are being thrown at them, they're having a problem prioritising, deciding what's most important as opposed to things that are trivial." As an example he cited the conflict that might arise over fundraising for a school trip and attending a football match: a student struggles with determining whether fundraising can be done at a later time, and to what extent the team will be at a disadvantage because of a student's absence.

Both young people, with strong academic performance and a range of interests beyond the curriculum, are clearly well on their way to achieving their goals for their final year and beyond.