From the sweltering heat of the hottest day on record on Wednesday to probably the wettest day in Bruton on Thursday – we have seen a mixture of weather (and outfits) this week. Quite extraordinary to say the least. And last Friday you may recall that I was off to Hauser & Wirth to see the premier of the Youth Cinema Foundation films that the students have been making this year and again the range of talent (acting, editing, sound, production, costumes) was extraordinary. The quality of the performances was stunning and I hope that our students gained much from the experience and will remember us when they collect their Baftas and Oscars in years to come. My thanks to Jack Price, the parents, staff, Hauser and Wirth and the countless people behind the scenes who worked tirelessly to provide such extraordinary opportunities for our students. And not only our students, but those who are thousands of miles away; this week we played host to our Chinese guests from our partner school in Yueyang in the Hunan Province – Yueyang No 2 Middle School. Both our students and those from China have had a tremendous time learning about each other’s cultures and heritage and have been taking part in various workshops and activities – from Drama and History to St Mary’s, Bruton and Sexey’s Hospital, to Wyke Farm, Stourhead and Hauser & Wirth. This weekend, the students are off to the seaside at Weymouth (let’s hope the weather stays fine) and to Bath to visit the Abbey and the magnificent Roman Baths. Our students have benefitted from this enriching experience (the Farewell Assembly this afternoon was testimony to that with Annabel Thrippleton performing a brilliant solo) and will now have even stronger links with their partner school in Yueyang. We may even see some of our students travelling over to China next summer- do please watch this space.
This week’s Achievement Assembly was a great celebration of all the successes that our Sexeians have accomplished in a diverse range of endeavours. The new Senior Prefects, which were voted in by the students, addressed the school and we wish them well as they take on the important role of leading the student body next year. We also had an emotional presentation from our 6th form students who talked about their experience when they visited Auschwitz last term. This was especially poignant with the passing away of Sir Nicholas Winton earlier this week who saved the lives of hundreds of children destined for Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. An extraordinary man. We celebrated achievement of all sorts, from academic, music, drama and sport and in particular Ali Layard (Y7) who took 6 wickets for 10 runs in an U15 cricket match against Downside School last Saturday – do read the story in Cricket World. And the success of both Caitlin Carnegie (Y10) and Ziana Azariah (Y13) who will be representing Somerset at the National Athletics Championships at Gateshead next week – extraordinary achievements. We also prayed for the victims of the atrocities that occurred in Tunisia, France and Kuwait last week and observed a minute’s silence at noon today, as did much of the country.
We certainly live in an extraordinary world and I hope at Sexey’s we give our students the necessary life skills to live in such a world. We endeavour to ‘teach our students to think intelligently, act wisely and be fully engaged in a challenging and changing world’. This was clearly evident this week.
Zhōumò Yúkuài
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