Saturday sees our 11+ entrance examination at Seniors with record numbers of families

Saturday sees our 11+ entrance examination at Seniors with record numbers of families again, bringing their daughters to sit for entry to seniors.

We have had some extremely positive feedback from prospective families (as I would expect) about what a good job our student ambassadors did at our open events in demonstrating what an empowering, intelligent and inclusive community we are. My thanks once again to you for supporting your daughters in attending and helping at all these important weekend events.

At this time of year, I always read through the final UCAS applications with Year 13 and it is such a privilege and pleasure to see those confident impressive applications for civil engineering, neuroscience or international relations from students who not that long ago were in Year 6 and a little nervous to be moving up to the senior school.

This week we have been participating in anti-bullying week at both sites and alongside the visible ‘odd socks’ campaign, our peer mentors have been doing an excellent job with workshops in tutor time across the school. Our annual House Music competition, adjudicated by DJ and percussionist Lyndsay Evans, saw over 90 different entries and fabulous array of performances; huge congratulations to the music department for organising this annual event (whilst also running the tea-time concert and planning for our Christmas concert).

I would also like to draw your attention, if you are not already aware, to the excellent GDST podcast series: ‘Raise her Up!’. Covering topics as diverse as Eco-Anxiety, Equal parenting and careers conversations, there are some really engaging bite-sized chunks on the issues that might be exercising us as parents, and just the right length to listen to on a dog walk or run.

Finally,  a heart-felt thank you for your continued support in co-operating with testing and notification of COVID results, we are hoping we are soon over this particular hump in terms of COVID case numbers.  We will be taking extra measures with our planned Christmas events to minimise risk but we’ll not be restricting the fun!

On the matter of fun, can I remind you of the BHSA (parent and supporter association) website where a number of forthcoming events are listed? Coming up in December are some lovely events that will particularly appeal to families with younger children, such as Christmas bauble decorating and a guided Christmas walk; more details on the website. It is so lovely to have these community events back and my heartfelt thanks to the BHSA organisers for all their hard work.

Hopefully I will see many of you at up-coming events.