17 September 2021

It has been joyful to witness a return to normal Cranford operations this week, after so long of restrictions. We have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming parents to the various Coffee Mornings that took place earlier in the week, and to our Welcome to Junior School event on Wednesday evening.

We were delighted to be able to embrace a more flexible approach to parent communication over the pandemic, but nothing replaces face to face interaction and the importance of establishing strong connections with all our families and strengthening our school community. I lost track of the lovely comments and positive feedback we have received after these events and look forward to seeing more parents as the term progresses.

It has also been wonderful to welcome parents back on the side-lines at fixtures. We are delighted to be able to have the use of Wallingford Sports Park to further enhance our sporting facilities and our Senior pupils enjoyed a fiercely competitive hockey match last night against the Oratory. Our U11 Boys had an exceptional match against Horris Hill on Wednesday and today, our U9 team are off to enjoy the ISA Festival of Hockey – we wish them the best of luck!

Today also marks the first residential trip in over eighteen months, with our A level Geography and Biology trip. Students will be staying near Exmoor and I know that Dr Hill and Mrs Turner have a busy, action packed and fun few days in store for them all, enriched with some excellent teaching and learning. They are fortunate to be blessed with some lovely Autumn sunshine.

One of the highlights of a new academic year, is the new opportunities it creates for all our pupils. One such example of this is the appointment of our senior Head of School team. I have felt extremely privileged this week to have been able to interview an outstanding group of exceptional Year 11 pupils who had the courage and drive to apply for one of these roles. Each individual should be commended for the effort they put into their application. They were all able to convey their aspirations and motivation for serving in a leadership position, which made the decision-making process extremely difficult. I am delighted to announce our new Head of School as Tazmeen, with Liv, Kate, Alice and Esme as Deputy Heads of School and Emily as our Senior Prefect. I know that they will be wonderful role models, leading pupil participation across the school.

I have had a really wonderful end to this week! This morning in Senior School assembly 11T shared their top 5 tips for making this a successful year at school. They really are the most impressive role models and I particularly liked their emphasis on kindness. It is a real joy to be back together each week for assembly. This afternoon I attended a spectacular Senior School orchestra rehearsal. We have a record number of musicians in orchestra and it is fantastic to see our pupils across the school back playing together and sharing our collective love of music. We also enjoyed a very special Junior School assembly appointing our new Junior School leadership team - we have a very talented group of Year 6 Heads of School, Prefects and House Captains who are going to do an amazing job leading the Juniors this year! Congratulations to Lucy and Mylo as Heads of School in Juniors and Nancy and Thomas as Deputy Heads of School.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

James Raymond

Headmaster