One of the reasons for attending the conference is that we had ten works of Claires Court Art as regional winners on display at the National Art exhibition which runs concurrently, and I am delighted to report back that we enjoyed considerable further success there. More details on that to follow next week!

We were excited to reopen our dining room this week, with Karen Barker, our cook, welcoming us back with her fabulous homemade soup (today is curried vegetables) and delighted with both the volume of dishes served and the warmth of the boys' engagement. We were also very happy to welcome in parents and boys of Year 7 for their first tour of the premises for their workshare with teachers on Tuesday evening; thanks so much for your warm welcome as well. Sincere apologies to B10 parents of course for the fact that we had had to cancel your event last week, but we were very glad to make use of our new on-line parents evening software SchoolCloud this week, enabling parents and teachers to connect anyway.  At the half-way point the signs look very promising that we have a real alternative possible now should in-house parents meetings be required to be cancelled.

And finally, I look forward to commence the planting of trees in our fields this Saturday and next; if any families would like to be involved in the expansion of our tree planting to create a 'Tiny Forest' there, I have opened up a specific slot for this on Saturday morning, 4 December. My grateful thanks to parent Simon Hawkins (Y12) who is volunteering his expert knowledge to ensure our trees successfully flourish into the longer term.