My thanks to Mrs Lothian and her Maths team for stewarding their candidates so well, and my sympathies to those who did not quite get the grade they had hoped for first time round. 

With GCSE graduation in mind, I am delighted to confirm that the Year 11 Prom is to take place at Lillibrooke Manor, Cox Green, on Tuesday 30 June from 7pm to 10pm. Further details and tickets for this event will be available shortly, and parents of Year 11 are invited to attend the first hour of this regular fixture in our calendar. 

I cannot reiterate enough just how important regular reading is, and that reading out loud to a friendly audience, for example at home to the dog, is even better. If there is anything in education that is a magic bullet, it is reading, and everyone can acquire and keep this skill. As Luke Wespieser, Head of English, demonstrated at the World Book Day assembly on Thursday, 'reading is power' is a great statement, to which the required response is 'sharing stories'! The subsequent book quiz was entertaining and challenging, and I am delighted to confirm that the World Book Day 2020 champion was Freddie, Year 8. A future nobel laureate for literature is assured, or so Mr Wespieser suggests.

By way of example of the above, the school’s public speaking competition on Thursday evening saw nine extraordinary performances from our enthusiasts in this field, with their own hand-crafted talks wowing the audience with topics as diverse as ‘how to survive the zombie apocalypse’ through to ‘pressures on generation Z’. The winner was Panashe from Year 8, who persuasively engaged the judges with his premise that ‘becoming a better liar would lead to a better life’! The photo below shows all the candidates, together with their public speaking specialist teacher, Rob Bowen.

It is also lovely to see news of our school’s efforts to promote reading with its local book hunt being publicised nationally in a variety of journals, here’s the ISA’s article.  

The dreadful weather continues, and with so much effort put in to host the ISA National 7s here at Claires Court, it is nice to record that one of the competitors, Finborough School from Suffolk was staying over last night, so Claires Court were able to make value from all their 7s practice by providing some opposition for Finborough. Playing the game is of course the result - but who the victors were will have to wait until next week’s bulletin!