So far, it has been a good summer term, all being equal. The weather has been sufficiently kind to us on the good days, for us not to mind about the wet ones. Work for all in education has remained blisteringly busy, managing as we are the enormous planned changes in the English public examination curriculum which are currently underway, and have perhaps one more full year of added load for those in the secondary phase.

More generally, I remain somewhat dumbfounded by the growing turmoil in public services and utilities. I can only be delighted that I walk to work rather than rely upon train services, that I am healthy in mind and body as well as accident free (touch wood) don’t need access to health services (emergency or otherwise), and that the streets around where I live seem for the moment safe to walk around.

However, whatever the state of my dumbfoundedness, I wake every day with a sense of optimistic purpose, urged on by G.K’s famous quote to create some wonder in the community which I serve. Whatever the in-tray has winking at me, I do know I need to create something anew or quality assure something old, so that curiosity about learning and skill acquisition remains to the forefront in our school.

Obviously a lot is borrowed from elsewhere; whoever knew 10 years ago that social media could be used to entertain and inform as well as it does, or that any of us can live-stream events for the distant viewer. Bringing G suite tools on board in 2013 provides us then with a new set with which to manipulate our digital environment, and their near-universal take-up means we can watch (for example) the National Schools Rowing championships live on Youtube, something that the terrestrial broadcasters would never bother with.

One of the major events I coordinated this week was the ISA London West Athletics championships at Thames Valley Stadium, Eton College.  As I write, back-stage peeps are putting the final touches on the results sheets; for the first time we ran a photo-finish for the track events, which is just as well, for without such we could not have possibly known that the Claires Court U17 relay side had pipped ACS Egham by 0.01 second for the Gold medal? Who’d have thought a school champs would have such sophisticated technology made available for them? There certainly was no argument when the respective team coaches watched the video replay, with CC’s Byron Ewing dipping his chest at the precise moment!

What a wonder that was, indeed!