This week in our school community: 20 June 2025

Pilgrims of Hope day for our Camino schools

 

Last Friday our 1719 Society and some of our younger chaplains put on a spectacular day with Mr Robinson and our friends at Downside. We hosted a Pilgrims of Hope day for our Camino schools to come together in prayer, reflection and companionship. Thank you to all involved for allowing us to become more hope-filled people in this Jubilee year.

Our Year 5 Taster day on Monday was wonderful; thank you Mr Richardson for organising for some of our Camino schools to spend a day finding out what secondary school is like, and to colleagues for teaching such excellent lessons. Well done to all Year 7 helpers for being such fantastic ambassadors on the day: Merryn R, Sydiene K D, Tilly H-R, Charlie L, Natasha B, Patrick S. 

Our Year 9 students were also excellent Sports Ambassadors when we hosted St John's sports day on Tuesday - there are too many to name but parents and carers were incredibly complimentary about the way they ran the games and looked after the younger pupils.

Year 9 were also treated to eight exceptional Public Speaking performances this week in our inaugural Public Speaking Competition. Congratulations to Lucy O'S, Tilly W, Mathilda T, Katya Z, Delia M, Esther B, Hamish M and Dylan S for speaking so passionately about a range of topics from the impact of socio-economic status on educational outcomes to the dark side of ballet. However, it was Delia who took the trophy for her emotive speech on 'sonder', the feeling of realising that everyone has a life as full and rich as one's own. If you've never heard of it, look it up! It's a fascinating topic and Delia presented with confidence, poise and passion. Congratulations to all who took part - they were shining examples of our school principle, 'aspiration', in action.

Please take some time to read the speech that I delivered at our annual Prize-giving ceremony this week, especially if you were not present. We have been so lucky to have Br Tommy with us for a few days as our guest speaker and I know he has enjoyed spending time with students and staff.  Mrs-George-PrizeGiving-2025.pdf  

Wishing you a lovely sunny weekend when it comes. We hope to see many of you for our  Corpus Christi procession at St Gregory’s on Sunday at 3pm.  

Mrs Melissa George (BA Hons, MA, PGCE) 

Headteacher