Learning obviously lies at the heart of our community and is a powerful shared endeavour between pupils and their teachers. In a rapidly changing, technological world, our role must be to prepare our young people to be curious, adaptable and ambitious learners, able to put their understanding and a broad range of skills to good use, whatever the context in which they find themselves. Alongside advances in automation, the importance of critical thinking and human attributes cannot be underestimated.

As we encourage our Bright Sparks’ curiosity, we are also keen to ‘grow’ inquisitive and self-reflective staff, keen to refresh and refine their practice. During the last couple of weeks, our subject and pastoral leaders have attended meetings with their peers in our cluster group of top Midlands independent day schools. They bring back ideas to share with their departments and thus enrich our pupils’ experience. Likewise, I meet regularly with other heads, to keep abreast of developments and to discuss solutions to any challenges we are facing in education.

Pupils will by now have received most of their internal examination results, and these are accompanied by feedback, parents’ evenings and reports. I hope that this is seen as another learning experience as pupils learn from mistakes and consolidate their knowledge and understanding. I hope there are many successes to celebrate but, where there are disappointments, I hope too that these can be turned into opportunities.

Best wishes,

John Watson
Headmaster and Principal