We had a visiting speaker in for assembly on Tuesday as part of our inspirational women programme. Ms Austin Smith arranged for us to hear from Dr Kerri; she told us about her journey through her university on to her PhD and out to Singapore to work as a research scientist, exploring how to shape government policy to encourage healthy eating in the city state. The best bit of this talk was where she contrasted the Instagram version of her career path vs the reality. She was fantastically honest about not quite getting the grades to study at her desired university, not quite getting into her desired PhD programme the first time around and being turned down for job after job. She stuck to her values and principles and kept going through all of the challenges. This was refreshing and inspirational, and in the words of Frank Turner, ‘the path I follow isn’t straight and narrow it wanders around like an unstable fellow, some days it’s hard for me to follow, but if you’ve got my back I’ll go on’. Such a nice reminder that successful people have had it tough too. 

A special thanks must go to our nursing team and our local NHS workers for the smooth and efficient running of the vaccinations on Wednesday. The students taking up the vaccine were great and I was exceptionally proud of how well the students respected the decisions of those taking up the vaccine and those choosing not to. I think this reflected the approach of the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and immunisations; they debated the roll out for some time but eventually decided on recommending the vaccination to children because of the potential impact on education. 

This is a difficult time for some of our families who are back to the world of online learning this week. We have, once again, been reminded of how Covid can rip through a community at an enormous speed. I would like to send our best wishes to students off, isolating at home; we are looking forward to welcoming them back to school after half term. 

Enjoy your break, everybody.