If you can find a spare five minutes this weekend – not easy, I know – I strongly urge you to watch this week’s highlights video below, put together by the brilliant Nalini Chamane. The breadth and depth of the learning activities at HSW this week has been extraordinary. I am so excited to see our new Dance Club taking off, and also to see the children practising their tennis skills up at the excellent tennis facilities up the road on Copse Hill. Our Juniors visited the British Museum (and experienced a full evacuation into the bargain, brilliantly handling by everyone), and there have been so many other different experiences delivered this week.

My job has many strands to it, but two of them stand out for me: to keep the children safe and happy, and to put inspiring people and edifying activities in front of them. Watching that video, I think we are on our way to achieving these important aims. We have still more to do, but there is no doubt our curriculum is getting richer and the learning experiences are becoming wider. I am grateful to everyone for going above and beyond to create a fantastic week of learning.

This afternoon was eventful too – it was that moving moment, once again, when we bade farewell to our Year 11 leavers. As is our annual tradition here, we lined the corridors and pathways to applaud each and every one of them as they walked from their form rooms down to the gate and out into the world beyond. We are so very proud of them all. They will return for their GCSE exams of course, but today may well have been the last time we shall see them all together – and an impressive sight they made. Thank you so much to the PTA for organising those fabulous leavers’ hoodies, specially designed for the ‘Class of 2023’.

We salute you all.

Yours,