“Having returned to school following unseasonably warm and sunny weather there is a sense of refreshment and optimism in the air. Staff were engaged at the INSET day on Tuesday in examining the question of how we give the best possible value to our students and their families in what is an uncertain economic and political climate for independent schools in England.

Our pastoral care, academic rigour, and the opportunities we provide for deeper engagement with our learning needs to be distinctive and first class. We are not complacent as a school, and we discussed the need to live adventurously, in true Quaker fashion.

Wednesday’s first Collect continued this theme, and a call was made to students to approach the term with a spirit of adventure, grounded in the confidence which our distinctive ethos gives us. How thrilling it was to visit the Lower 6th IB students in the morning as they made presentations on their own creative responses to literature. Taking as their texts “The Collector” and “Equus”, the students amazed us with the depth and variety of their offerings. They clearly not only had absorbed the texts themselves, but had ventured deeper into learning by interpreting them through painting, music and creative writing. It was a privilege to see teachers probing with expert questions which opened the rich seams of understanding which the students had at their core. What joy to witness the shared celebration of their efforts by the class, and the thrill so palpably evident in their teachers’ responses to the work. This was learning and teaching at its best: an adventure into deeper learning, and the humbling realisation as a teacher of what one’s pupils are capable of when the bar of expectation is set high enough.

In the afternoon, a philosophy symposium organised by Mitch Whitehead to celebrate the 300th birthday of David Hume attracted outside speakers and students to Leighton Park in which our own students’ presentations took centre stage. What a fine beginning to this examination term! So nice that revelling in academic exploration was the theme, rather than the drudgery of rote revision.

Beautiful sunshine bathed the Park once more throughout the day, and as I write I can see groups of friends sitting chatting and reading together on the grass. It has felt more like a university than a school here today. Wonderful!”