Prep Blog: Spring into Summer

Jenny O'Neill reports on exciting Prep Easter trips and Harrodian visitors and flags up the fun and the hard work the Summer Term will bring

The Easter holidays usually mark the height of Trip Season at Harrodian Prep and this year provided pupils with a range of exciting options. Long a favourite fixture in the Harrodian diary,  the Italian trip – which took in Rome, Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento and assorted points in between – was led this year by Mr Fenn-Smith with Ms Collard performing invaluable translation duties. Undisputed star of the show was Mr Lineker who brought classical knowledge and exuberant presence to his role as tour guide, even dramatically re-enacting a Roman divine sacrifice with one prep pupil standing in as the unlucky goat.

For would-be Murrays or Federers, the holiday destination of choice was Barcelona. Mr Seaton led a group of prep and senior tennis players on a hard-working and highly productive coaching trip to the Barcelona Tennis Academy. Meanwhile Miss Field was reprising her highly popular annual  trip to Normandy, with landmarks including Falaise castle, birthplace of William the Conqueror, Bayeux, home of the tapestry and culinary highlights including working – and tasting –  visits to a boulangerie, a cheese farm and a caramel factory.

After their relaxing break, pupils have returned refreshed and ready for the last nine weeks of the school year. There will be plenty of opportunities for Prep pupils to enjoy local trips in May and June as well as to take their sporting and study schoolwork into the open air. But as end of year assessments draw near hard work and revision will be required too – especially for those 11s and 12s taking exams in the week before half term.  

To get our senior Prep pupils in a positive mood for the term – and to illustrate where hard work, talent and unbounded enthusiasm can take you – we invited the brilliant Holly Tucker MBE, Harrodian parent (below, with 11s and 12 pupils) and founder of www.notonthehighstreet.com to come to talk to the 11s and 12s on the first Friday of term.  Holly explained how she built a business in Richmond employing 250 people which has already injected £700 million into the British economy. What was striking about this remarkable story was Holly’s distinctly passionate approach to her career. ‘Success is not about the money. It’s about being happy doing what you love for a living,’  she told Harrodians. ‘It’s about the difference you make in other people’s lives.’

Below I’ve set out my shorthand version the principles for success Holly set out during her talk. I hope you find them as inspirational as we do.

1. Find the diamond within you: the passion that needs to shine and make a living bringing it to the world
2. Be an enthusiast: lukewarm won’t get you where you want to be
3. Be the nerd. Work hard and then work harder
4. Do not compare yourself to others or seek perfection. It will just discourage you from being yourself
5. Be really excellent at one thing and stick at it