9 June 2017

As the Year 11 GCSE Examinations approach their final phase, I continue to be impressed by the maturity and poise with which our pupils are tackling the challenge.

I am sure parents across the school will join me in wishing them well for the last of their examinations and a restful summer ahead. It has also been wonderful to see the enthusiasm with which our Year 10 team has taken to their new positions of responsibility - it promises to be an exciting 12 months ahead under their leadership! 

One of the many pleasures of my job is its variety. Over the last five days I've enjoyed the opportunity to share my own love of reading with Nursery children, to join in the action-packed excitement of our annual Reception and KS1 Pirate Day, to hear all about the Year 10 geographers’ successful trip to North Wales and to welcome Year 4 parents into school for their children’s tea concert. Please do take a moment to review some of the week’s pictures in our Flickr albums for a small flavour of daily life in school: https://www.flickr.com/photos/...

As planning for the next academic year reaches its final stages, I've also greatly enjoyed discussions with the teaching team about curriculum and extra-curricular developments for next year, as well as visiting lessons across the Junior and Senior School. We will look forward to sharing more details of next year’s plans later this term, but it has been great to see the sheer energy and talent of our pupils and teachers, as well as their collective love of learning.

As a consequence, our reputation for excellence continues to grow, resulting in most pleasing numbers on the school roll, including a full Reception class, Years 1, 2, 3 and 7 for September 2017. This week we also welcomed more than 50 children to this week’s Year 5 Taster Day. Their first experience of Senior School life saw them tackling mime in Drama, keyboard skills in Music, an energetic PE lesson and whipping up batches of cookies in our new Cookery room.

Finally, I was delighted to hear of the great success of our Year 9 and 10 Tennis team who are going from strength to strength, scoring an overall victory over St Helen & St Katharine this week. The team have notched up a spectacular 90% win rate this season. Well done, girls!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Dr J Raymond