Headmaster James Hooke reflects on one of the busiest weeks in Harrodian's summer calendar.
The Harrodian staff meeting I lead in the dining room every Monday morning at 8 o’clock is always a key starting point for the school week. It gives all our teachers the chance to look back at the last seven days and forward to the next seven, identifying areas of focus: events and happenings we need to be conscious of for example, or pupils who, for one reason or another, require special attention or care.
You might expect that with the summer holidays almost upon us, a meeting which normally takes 15 minutes or so, might be a briefer affair. Not a bit of it. With this week's list of academic, pastoral and co-curricular events, last Monday’s meeting was twice as long as usual and keeping up with my packed diary has ensured a busy week from start to finish.
This week's list of academic, pastoral and co-curricular events last Monday’s meeting was twice as long as usual and my packed diary has kept me busy all week.
Mr James Hooke, Headmaster
Thanks to Friday's opening of Harrodian's Art Exhibition showcasing our GCSE and A level students' hugely varied and accomplished output of photography, design, art and media projects, I began the week with Harrodian's artistic achievements fresh in my mind. But by 9, on Monday morning, my focus had widened to include sport too.
The mega-scaled inter house Sports Days organised for our Prep and Senior age groups began early on Monday and Tuesday respectively. By lunchtime on each day I was announcing the winners for each, with Lonsdale scooping the Junior sports cup and Bridge the Senior version. On Thursday our indefatigable sports team was performing a similar vast organisational feat in the form of an all-day swimming gala for the whole of the Prep school.
The beauty of the house system is that these contests always have a special edge and the same can be said of intra-school contests beyond the sporting arena. There was no doubting the friendly but fierce spirit of rivalry that participants brought both to cake and music making in the House Bake off finals on Thursday and the Music competition on Friday, for example.
Harrodian sporting activity has hit its summer peak this week and the same might be said of our trip programme with pupils from the 13s and 14s returning from residential trips and pupils of all ages embarking on more local trips this week, among them a classful of 14s RE pupils visiting Buddhapadipa Temple, Wimbledon, all 185 of our Pre-Preppers spending the day at Odds Farm in Berkshire and the 8s enjoying an exciting “night in the Junior Library”.
My habitual daily perambulations around our campus have also revealed that this is a moment of preparation-making as well as excursion-taking. On Tuesday, I came across a classroom of 13s and 14s pupils poring over maps in readiness for this weekend’s qualifying silver and bronze expeditions to the Surrey countryside, either on foot or in canoes . And on Wednesday I popped my head into a classroom in which our new Head Mentors were imparting key counselling skills to the latest crop of 15s who will be taking up roles as mentors to younger Harrodians in need of advice or support when they return as Sixth Formers in the autumn.
Reflecting on this week of Harrodian in full flow as I embarked on this blog, brought to mind the review of the school on Good Schools Guide, a transcript of which landed on my desk last week. Praising Harrodian's 'all in-it-together culture' , the author wrote: ‘Pupils are encouraged to participate, to question and to express themselves in an environment that is busy and exceptionally beautiful. Happy pupils, happy parents, happy staff.’
Pupils are encouraged to participate, to question and to express themselves in an environment that is busy and exceptionally beautiful. Happy pupils, happy parents, happy staff.
The Good Schools' Guide 2023, Harrodian review
You can read all the nice things the Good School Guide has to say about our ethos, facilities and values by visiting our review on their website but, as you need a subscription to read it, we will try to provide a few extra tasters, in our final newsletter of the year next week.
If, in the meantime, you’d like to get a real-life dose of Harrodian’s very special sense of community before the summer holidays arrive, please do come along to the Summer Festival organised by The Friends of Harrodian this weekend when the many attractions will include silent disco, a BBQ, a summer bazaar and bucketfuls of ice cream and fun.