Head Master's Weekly Notes - 24th April

Staying on TRaK (Tolerance, Respect & Kindness) continues to be our drive this term with preparation for public examinations fully underway (the KS3 Trinity exams take place next week), and it is important that our students remain fully engaged and focussed. The pace and intensity has been relentless since we got back last week and has seen our students taking on the responsibility of public exams in a mature and considered manner. I have been impressed with their work ethic, independence of thought and positive attitude in and around school, including the boarding houses, and I commend them for their sterling efforts. No doubt nerves will be frayed and patience tried (and that’s just the teachers!), but we are here to help and support our students during this tough time. And I am sure they will do you and the school proud – everyone has the ability and potential to succeed, so long as one has self-belief and determination, which has been evident over the course of these past few months.

The SIAMS inspection, as you will recall happened at the tail end of last term, was a very positive experience and I am delighted to announce that the report from the Diocese was excellent. We have moved on considerably since the last inspection and the Diocese and the Church of England were very impressed with what they saw and commented on the nature of the school and the excellent relationships that our students have. The strong sense of family and community at Sexey’s was clearly evident and this is underpinned by our core values. You can read the full report here and I would like to thank staff, students, parents, Governors, Old Sexeians and friends of the school for all their support. We are a special and unique school and we are certainly on TRaK in many ways and I hope that our students continue to value the first class education that they are receiving here and achieve to their potential, both in and out of the academic arena. Keeping on TRaK can be difficult at times, and some will invariably come off it, but we are here to help them get back on TRaK and to hopefully stay on it. You are very welcome to join us at St Mary’s, Bruton for the Schools’ Service with Father Justin this Sunday morning and experience this sense of community - it would be lovely to see you.

Head Master's Weekly Notes - 17th April

Welcome back to the start of the Trinity Term – a term traditionally when courses culminate in the taking of public exams, cricket, rounders and athletics form the major sports and the sun begins to shine – and thankfully it is. It’s good to be back at school and to see the students in their summer dress and to get back into the swing of things after the Easter holidays.  And over the holidays, the Science department had a successful trip to Geneva, Switzerland where they visited the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, and were treated to a tour of the facility and an opportunity to immerse themselves in  Swiss culture. The mind-boggling fact was that the protons generated by the LHC travel around the circular 27km track (which is on the France-Swiss boarder) at 11000 times per second…now if that was the case at Sports Day (Friday 22 May) we will be breaking all sorts of records!

Bullying of all types is not tolerated at Sexey’s and on Tuesday we welcomed musician Rich Cottell, who has toured with likes of The Wanted, to perform in assembly and speak to the students about bullying, in particular cyber bullying. He is an ambassador for the Anti-Bullying charity, Bullying UK and his message struck a chord with us – don’t be mean behind the screen. Something for all us to bear in mind.

We welcomed two new members of staff to the Sexey’s community; Mr Luke Brailey who takes up the position of Head of Boys’ Sport and joined us from Avon Valley College where he taught PE and ran the Duke of Edinburgh award and  Mr Nigel Blake, our new Facilities Manager, who was the Estates Manager at both Sherborne Boys and Sherborne Girls. We look forward to working with them as they help move the school forward.  So with enrichment activities taking place, cricket practices (we play Warminster School this weekend), Inter House Swimming, County rugby at Bath (well done Sam Wilson), rehearsals for next week’s Cabaret (next Thursday – do come along and support),  Parent Staff Association meeting (do join the PSA – they do so much for the school), Maths interviews, sports graduate interviews, revision sessions, it’s like we have never had a holiday. Have we really only been back a week? Time flies…

Enjoy the sunshine!