Headmaster's Blog: Refitting the ship

While some of us were on the beach, the Good Ship Harrodian was undergoing its essential annual refit. Mr Hooke gives an insight into the hard graft involved 

What goes on at Harrodian, you might ask, during those long, hot summer days when our children are enjoying themselves resting up or on the beach and our teachers enjoying a well-earned rest?  Pupils and parents arriving at the start of term to find our beautiful riverside site looking both as pristine and serene as ever could be forgiven for thinking that the answer to the question is probably ‘Nothing much’.

The truth however is that summer isn’t a holiday for everyone. While many of us are kicking back and relaxing or jetting off in search of some sun, Harrodian’s Estate Manager, Dave Wicks is gearing up for the busiest and most demanding period in his work schedule.  If the Harrodian were an Ocean Liner – I confess that this nautical metaphor is a favourite of mine – then the summer holiday is the season when the ship comes into dry dock to undergo its annual ‘refit’. While a superficial glance from Lonsdale Road may suggest that nothing is happening, ‘below decks’ our teams are hard at work completing all the usually unglamorous jobs that are essential in keeping the school up to date and ready to meet the all the challenges the year will bring.

 Take, for example, the upgrade of our lovely theatre. For some time we’ve been planning a major overhaul of the electrics in this focal space to equip the theatre to meet the technical requirements imposed by conferences, assemblies and the increasingly ambitious productions staged every year by our music, drama and dance departments. This summer’s work has provided us with new house lights and fittings, a new projector, a high definition screen and the power and capacity required for the new stage lights and speakers which are scheduled to be installed in phase 2 of the refurbishment. 

Getting this done required an astonishing 7km of new wiring, as I discovered myself in July. When I dropped in to take a look a the works, the theatre appeared to have been turned inside out and filled with heavy duty spaghetti. Two months later, not a cable is out of place and the theatre has reclaimed its period elegance. Mr Wicks and his team have handled other major infrastructural changes with a similar light touch. Few people will notice that a large section of the cloister building has been re-roofed. Nor is there any sign of the deep trench that, in early August, ran like an earthquake fissure from the entrance lodge all the way to the Senior School and in which the heavy-duty cable that is essential for the school’s ever-increasing power usage was concealed.

 As with infrastructural work, technical upgrades such as the addition of new hi-tech classroom whiteboards or the extensive behind-the-scenes improvements to soft and hardware carried out this year by our IT team, often go unnoticed. But the summer has also brought more visible improvements. Thanks to the refurbishment of the dance studio over the summer, our dynamic dance specialist  and choreographer Miss Edwards will now have an additional space in which to train the pupils of all ages who join her clubs or take part in her spectacular annual dance show (27th November, Harrodian Theatre).  Meanwhile, an abundance of outstanding student-authored art and design (above and below) has been added to the walls of Harrodian communal spaces and corridors, including some gorgeous A Level and GCSE costume designs in our entrance hall.

So as we embark on on another exciting year, as ‘Captain of the ship’ I’d like to extend my gratitude to the expert but largely unsung back-room team who plan and implement our annual refit working to the most unforgiving deadlines. Thanks to their efforts, the Good Ship Harrodian is back on the water in first-class order and set fair for another exciting and successful educational voyage.  All aboard, please!