Today it was lovely to welcome over 100 students, and their parents, from local prep schools to our annual Under 10 Rugby Festival. The sunshine certainly helped create the wonderful atmosphere here at SVS. I am very grateful to the Sports department and Grounds and Maintenance teams for making it such a success. Since the beginning of the year, our Admissions team have been incredibly busy welcoming guests for meetings, tours (ably led by our excellent prefects) and our Open Days are full of prospective families. It is great to witness such enthusiasm about the School.

Earlier this week, I facilitated another meeting of the Student Council in which we reviewed a number of aspects of the first half of the year, looked at how we can improve and also discussed the things that excite us as we enter spring with summer on the horizon. We also had a discussion about various aspects of our PSHE/Pathways programme. I am always so impressed with how reflective, thoughtful and constructive our students can be and this meeting was a fine example of that

In the Headmaster’s Assembly today, I spoke about three very different people – Jay Blades, Jacinda Ardern and Eddie Jones. The initial link is that I received their autobiographies for Christmas and I have finally finished reading them, but more interestingly perhaps was the way all three have shown great resilience in a range of ways when so many challenges have been thrown at them. While they may seem to be distant and famous folk, the stories of these individuals chime with much about what we are trying to do here at SVS. Being a teenager is tough these days (as is indeed being a parent of teenagers!), but with commitment, effort, drive and support, we can manage to achieve things both individually and as a whole. Despite the challenges, we can be optimistic about the future together.

I trust the Second Form parents found their Parents’ Evening on Wednesday insightful; it is the turn for the Fourth Form next Tuesday. We are also soon beginning the GCSE options process so Third Form parents should keep an eye out for more information. I am so pleased we are able to start introducing a number of in-person events and I look forward to seeing a number of parents at the Kingdon Lecture on Thursday and the SVS Foundation Quiz on Friday.

Best wishes for the weekend.

James Thomas, Headmaster