From a personal and professional basis, my best news this week was receipt of permission for the opening of our new playing fields on our Junior Boys campus, providing as it does two major cricket squares for our senior cricketers which, in conjunction with our own facilities at Taplow and partnership with Boyne Hill, gives us the unrestricted access for both training and matches that the school needs for the Summer months. 

Music assembly this morning demonstrated (as well as any on-line event can) just how strong and diverse a range of talents we have at Senior Boys. In recent weeks, it's been excellent to hear singing and music making bring our early mornings back to life, and we can only hope as the vaccine roll-out continues that our school life can really return to some 'congregational' normality. It's only when we are in the same space that the emotional strength we have available can truly be shared. We were entertained with Green Day, classical, Mack the knife, a 3 kings 'hoot' and all that Jazz on show - it's a great Christmas stocking filler for our Assembly show reel.

At Monday Assembly this week, outdoor education's DoE and paddling lead, James Wragg spoke via camera to the school, letting us all know about his sponsored cycle around Great Britain, which starts on Saturday. We would have loved to have put a great 'Departure' display for Mr Wragg on site today, to accompany many of the classes' talk from Greenpeace, but sadly, the many and various journey requirements had the bike somewhere else today. Whatever happens to James, he will keep us in the loop via targeted Vlog to school; he has built a lovely website, https://cycleforchange.co.uk/,  to cover the journey, including the most charming photo of his family team supporting his work! 

We welcomed a cross-continent team from C-Learning and Merlyn Mind on Wednesday this week to help us in developing our use of Artificial Intelligence in education a little further, assisting us on the commissioning of our six Merlyn classroom digital assistants and inducting some key staff in the next steps, now at the Beta trial stage. Enjoying his GAP year employment with C-Learning is former Deputy Head Boy 2020-21 Owen Mashingaidze, who is likely as a consequence to spend some more time with us supporting that trial and gathering further research evidence highlighting just how effective AI deployment can be in schools. 

Thank you to our Year 9, everyone of whom acted so splendidly as our tour guides on Open Morning last Friday. Whilst we had to cap our visitor numbers for this event, and even create a new one due to huge demand, unofficially a few more visited on the day (after all schools have been closed for showrounds for 18 months), and we did need every hand to the pump to bring school full alive for our guests. Particular thanks go to the other 260 or so pupils on site, because they need to be working well under the spotlights too!

It's been really good to re-establish so much this week at Senior Boys, not least our first full week of GCSE examination practice for Year 11, our second raft of Rugby Fixtures (great results, please check out www.clairescourtsports.com) and what seems to be a gentle easing on the medical front. Just as nice to report is that our transport companies have been able to manage their diesel supplies, so despite ongoing concerns of the 'arrival of Armageddon', we have been able to run school normally.