There are weeks that simply hum with a particular energy, and this has been one of them! We enjoyed welcoming some visitors to school this week, who I know found us going about our business in exactly the way we always do. The boys and girls here have been engaged, curious and kind and the staff thoughtful, purposeful and committed. That, of course, is rather the point. As a school confident in what it does with, naturally, nothing to hide and everything to share we were genuinely glad of the opportunity to open our doors this week and demonstrate what makes Hampton Pre-Prep & Prep the terrific place I know it to be. The outcome of any such visit takes its own time to be formally confirmed and published but the experience of welcoming that scrutiny was, in itself, a thoroughly affirming one.
What the week also did, as such occasions invariably do, was prompt a great deal of deep and honest reflection for me personally as the Head here. There is real intellectual value in pausing to ask: what are we doing, and why does it work?Good schools do not simply carry on, they look carefully at their own practice, celebrate what is strong, and attend with equal rigour to what might yet be stronger. This habit of reflection is, I would argue, one of the most important intellectual behaviours we can model for our pupils because in my view, it sits at the very heart of effective learning.
And now, with all of that satisfying earnestness duly noted, it looks to me as I write that the Bank Holiday weekend ought to be crowned with a great deal of lustrous sunshine – if it is, hoorah! I shall definitely be stepping away from the serious business of school improvement with considerable enthusiasm, and I hope warmly that all our families will do the same. It is, after all, rather easier to reflect on a week well spent when one is doing so from a garden chair, even if I am sitting in the rain!
