I suspect, like us at home this week, your washing machines have been working overtime with soaking wet and muddy games kit. As wonderful as it is that students get the opportunity to be outdoors and have fun (all the way from our very youngest at SVPS going to Forest School, right up to the NCOs in the CCF). I know the impact on laundry management! Let’s hope for a slightly less soggy weekend and week ahead.

Earlier today, Mr Scholey and I welcomed Helen Whately MP who visited the Prep School. She bravely faced a large panel of Year 5 students, who asked her questions ranging from her hobbies to climate change. Wherever one stands politically, it is of course important to build these relationships, and I am grateful that she and her team spent the time with us.

With just a month to go until the end of term, diaries are getting busier and busier with lots of events on the horizon. Booking for the Carol Services is now live and bookings for the production of The Winter’s Tale will be live next week. I look forward to seeing many of you there at these flagship events. The Third Form parents had a constructive parents’ evening this week and Fifth Form parents will have their evening on 29^th November after the GCSE mock results have been published (well done to that year group for soldiering on through this fortnight!).

Tomorrow we have a group of nervous young students coming here for their First Form Entrance Examination; this may well seem a distant memory for a number of our students (and parents) but we will make sure to make them feel very welcome. Good luck to all of them.

Best wishes for the weekend.