Head Master's Weekly Notes - 27th September

Hola! GutenTag et Bienvenue!

Thursday saw The European Day of Languages being celebrated at the school and the MFL department put on a variety of activities which engaged and enthused not only the students, but the staff too – from a French breakfast in the KDR to quizzes and competitions. Acquiring the skills to speak and understand another language is so important as it not only helps communication but also develops a deep cultural understanding which nurtures the values of tolerance and respect – the very values we as a school promote as part of our ethos – studying languages can only be a good thing.

Not only am I proud of our students achievements in a variety of sporting and cultural pursuits, but also those of our staff on their personal achievements – firstly Mrs Jill Byrne who came 33/132 competitors in the Ping’s Women 4 Ball National Golf competition and to Mrs Nicky Young who graduated from Plymouth University with a PGCE. I would like to congratulate them both on their success and I look forward to golf lessons with Mrs Byrne! And speaking of success, our U12 Boys’ rugby team had their first match on Thursday against Wells Cathedral School (normally they would play after half term) and they put up a tremendous performance only narrowly losing to a strong Wells side.  We learn a lot from such experiences and you can gauge the measure of a person at how well they come back from defeat – and I believe our students grow stronger and wiser as a result. We look forward to welcoming Wells on the return fixture. The U13 Girls’ hockey team played Ansford yesterday and, although they lost marginally, they were magnanimous in defeat and clearly enjoyed the game by the enthusiastic response I got from them when I asked them about the fixture. Our philosophy is to inspire a lifelong interest in sport, promoting fitness, well-being,  team work and most of all, enjoyment and I hope our Sexeians enjoy the opportunities on offer to them.

We welcomed Ofsted on Tuesday (a baptism of fire to say the least!) who spent the last three days assessing the quality of our boarding provision and I would like to thank all the staff and students for their cooperation and support during the inspection. The official report will be published in a few weeks’ time and I will notify you in due course of the outcome. During Ofsted we also had our Open Evening and welcomed many prospective parents and their children to the school. Thank you for promoting the event amongst your friends and our next Open Evening, which will be for Sixth Form, is on Tuesday the 8th of October.

The Macmillam Coffee Morning’s is now a national institution and we hosted one today at Walwin House – Douglas Macmillan, the founder of the Macmillan Cancer charity was an Old Sexeian (1894-97) and Macmillan House is named in his honour. Thank you to the Catering team for supporting the event and over £250 was raised this morning.

There are plenty of activities going on this weekend, from a trip to London to visit the London Dungeons and the world class Westfield Shopping Centre, a visit to Bath Guildhall to hear the author Robert Muchamore speak at the Bath Literary Festival to surfing at Woolacombe in Devon. Follow us on Twitter @SexeysSchool. Now where is my wet suit…

The exeat seems like such a long time ago!

Regards,

Irfan H Latif
Head Master