Senior Reflections Week 35 June 2024

Dear parents,

What a week! Following the busy and successful field day activities and weekend, this week has been filled to bursting.

Lower school play and LAMDA results

The school hall was a magical place on Monday and Tuesday evenings this week – transformed to be the stage for telling the stories of Grimm’s tales. Quite dark in places, and equally amusing, the Third and Fourth Form actors, supported by Third and Fourth Form technical and production teams, did a wonderful job on the stage. All of us will have personal favourites – mine have to be some pretty demonic female characters (they know who they are!) and a wonderful cockerel! Very well done to all of our young actors, to the fabulous staff who supported them and to the three colleagues who directed the six playlets – Mr Jamie Brough, Mrs Aoife Gibson and Mrs Polly Whitfield. Well done to all.

Also in the dramatic arts, we recently received the LAMDA results. These individual and small group lessons have proven extremely popular over the last few years since we introduced the programme with pupils of all ages being involved. The results have been fabulous and this tranche was no exception, with pupils taking exams up to grade 8 this time around. And every single one was awarded a merit or distinction, with 96% achieving distinction – the top grade! These are super results and we congratulate all those involved, and thank our wonderful drama staff for supporting them so well in their dramatic pursuits.

AI

Over the past couple of weeks Third Form-Middle Fifth and Lower Sixth have each had an assembly on what AI and generative AI is, why it is important, what the benefits and drawbacks are (including a section on how AI can be used to generate fake videos and media), a reminder of the AI agreement they have all signed, reflecting on the reasons there is a 13+ age limit for using it and then how to get the most out of using AI effectively and responsibly for those pupils who are old enough.

According to a recent report in February by internet matters 44% of children are engaging with generative Al tools. This figure rises to more than half (53%) of 13-14 year olds so I think it is worth sharing with parents as something to be aware of! This is a link to an interactive parents’ guide to AI tools for parents who would like to read more on AI.

Governors meeting and fees

On Wednesday we had our final full board meeting of the year and said thank you and goodbye to three governors; the chairman, Mr James Gaisford, the chair of the welfare and safeguarding committee, Mrs Ruth Vigers, and the chair of the academic committee, Miss Rowan Edbrooke. All of them will be standing down from the board at the end of this term. We thank them for their service and support, their critical friendship and their pragmatic approach to delivering on our strategy and supporting the school. We will miss them all. At the meeting the fee rise for next year was agreed and you will have received the Chairman’s letter about this on Wednesday, setting out our strategy in the event of the imposition of VAT on fees in the coming academic year. We hope that the clarity given in this letter, and our approach to try to cushion the blow financially and support families is welcome news. You can read the letter here.

Staff leavers

In the evening on Wednesday the governors hosted a dinner to say goodbye to our staff leavers throughout the year. It was a pleasure to welcome so many former colleagues and friends of the school to support them and wish them well as they move on – it was certainly a very convivial night for all concerned. It was especially good to see Mr Martin Hughes and Mr Andy Mason, both of whom left during the academic year after 19 years of service, back at school. I hope that they enjoyed the event.

Speech day events

Yesterday we had two of our speech day events to celebrate all that your children have achieved this year in the sixth form and the middle school. Amy Swiggs, our visiting speaker, a climate science researcher, reflected on her time at the school and reminded pupils that they should reach for their dreams. Amy is working at the cutting edge of polar ice research and also shared with us her optimism for the future, something that it is sometimes hard to believe when we consider the changing climate. Her audience participation went down very well and it is clear that pupils and parents were inspired by the messages shared by a former pupil who is not so long out of school. It was lovely to see so many of you here for the two events and I congratulate all of your children, the speakers were fabulous, as were the performers, prize winners and unsung heroes, who all deserve our applause. Many thanks to our wonderful operations team, to Mr Graham Bone, Mrs Kim Leach, Mrs Liz Williams and Mrs Lisa Stewart who have done a huge amount of work in the last few weeks to ensure that speech day was the success that it was.

Upper Sixth leavers

Tonight we say goodbye to the outgoing pupils at their leavers’ dinner. Mr Chu has been working hard organising what I know will be a fantastic event and I hope that they enjoy this opportunity to say goodbye to school after their A levels. Next time we see them will be on results day, in mid-August, when the champagne will be flowing. We wish them all a wonderful summer.

This weekend and looking ahead

We have Old Exonian day tomorrow – and I look forward to seeing some of you there, with the anniversary dinner in the evening for those who left in 1964, 74, 84, 94 and 2004. Doubtless it will be a fun and enjoyable event for all concerned. I always enjoy meeting former pupils and look forward to these events this weekend. The DofE gold expedition is off to Wales over the weekend and we wish them well for their challenging journey. On Monday we have the Jazz supper at 6:30pm in the main hall. House day is on July 3 with sports day and house dance events for all. On Thursday we will be welcoming prospective parents for an open house event in the morning and new pupils and parents for their event in the afternoon. Friday is activities day with a range of events and activities at school and elsewhere for your children and the Lower Sixth focusing on their UCAS applications.

Good luck to the cricketers against Blundell’s School on Saturday.

Have a great weekend,