Happy New Year to all! I hope that you have had a restful and enjoyable festive season. To those whom I haven’t yet managed to greet in person, I extend my warmest wishes for 2025. May it be a year filled with happiness, success, and inspiration for us all here at Hampton Pre-Prep & Prep.
As we dive into the Spring Term, there is much to look forward to. Our assembly theme for this term for example is “Technology,” a word that encompasses so many intriguing and varied guises. From the most cutting-edge innovations to the everyday gadgets that have become part of our lives, we will be exploring how technology shapes our world and sparks our imaginations. Both Mrs Murphy and I introduced the theme in the Pre-Prep & Prep assemblies this week. I have no doubt that my colleagues and our pupils will bring their usual curiosity and creativity to this theme when it is their turn to showcase their thinking, and I am excited to see where their explorations take them as the assembly schedule unfolds this term.
Speaking of technology, on our first day back this week I was both amused and delighted to hear a tale of some highly successful gift giving over the holidays, which seems to have perfectly presaged our assembly theme for the term. A boy in Year 6, in a wonderfully Hampton Prep-type twist, asked for (and received!) an air fryer for his birthday. Now, as someone with a birthday slap bang in the middle of the year myself, I’ve always thought that those with birthdays so close to Christmas get a bit of a raw deal. But in this case, it appears the air fryer has provided nothing but much longed-for golden, crispy joy! The idea of a young boy requesting kitchen tech as a gift captures in part, I believe, our unique spirit where thinking outside the box (or, in this case, inside the fryer) is the norm. And while I don’t expect air fryers to become standard issue in the James Hall at lunch any time soon, I do look forward to plenty of other surprises and delightful moments in the weeks ahead!
