This week’s papers are ablaze with all the bad news of the moment, after all, that’s how they fill the news/screen-print and encourage click-bait, encouraging commercial advertisers to help pay the bills. This upbeat message is deliberate, because my lived experiences in school remain really positive! Though it must be said, weather-wise, “Winter draws in”!

Regular readers of my own writing know I will often ‘rail against the storm’, mainly I think to ensure others know I have noticed the inclement conditions they are having to endure. Sufficient to say that the mundane reality of my role as Academic Principal is, that when snowy weather is forecast, I am up and about at 6am to check conditions outside, and as appropriate make the choices to be called. My family WhatsApp is a great support in this, with members to the north and west, cheerfully checking whether it is to be a ‘snow day’ for them or not. Frankly, the gloating from those resident in warmer climes elsewhere on escaping the misery of a sleety day in Maidenhead doesn’t help! If we have difficulties that need an alert to parents, then we have the range of social media, text messaging and website warnings to assist of course.

So what has Claires Court done this week?

• Sunday – news breaks that our own Mrs Ruth Young has become a Masters Hockey World Champion
• Monday – opened our new Food Studio at Senior Boys;
• Tuesday – world-wide video launch of our AI work with Merlyn Origin, filmed and produced entirely in-house;.
• Wednesday – major sports victories at senior level, best being RFU vase win by U14 team away against Taunton School (40-5); next up is Sherborne school at the semi-final stage. 
• Thursday – ISA Whitbread award for CC best performer at GCSE, Rhiannon Thomas, citation here and
• Juniors held a brilliant PTA Christmas Fair at Ridgeway, with visitors, shopping and fun all around;
• Friday – PTA trustees meet to sanction further major funding investments in school fabric and provision for all divisions, and the week’s not over yet!

Thursday night at the Claires Court PTA Fair.

I think we all recognise the rights of the Government to do its best to address the financial and economic climate it has inherited, and finds itself in, as we reach the close of 2024. It’s not just UK matters at stake either, but the national security of our borders, our relationships with the wider world and our support for peaceful and appropriate resolutions to the conflicts that also fill our news briefings too. What I do leading a school needs to be ‘from the front and in person’, because ‘agency’ is expected of me, and most of the time, ‘every cloud does have a silver lining’, so I go looking for it! 

I’m a huge Tolkien fan. I discovered him late in childhood and am still encouraged to this day by the impact it had on me to ‘keep reading the text’! The image below captures Frodo and Gandalf mulling the situation over!

Tolkien’s thoughts as carried in Lord of the Rings spanned the period 1937-1949, far more than just the period of the Second World War and I suppose we can be thankful that the happy ending arose not just because of the vanquishing of the fascists of the day, not just peace, but the commitment to the world to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Just imagine where we would be now if we had not determined that every child should be able to go to school, without a National Health Service or indeed without the reconstruction of our cities and new towns, all going for growth, and yes, despite eye-watering levels of National Debt, and food rationing in place still for a further 5 years, covering the first 6 months of my own life!

To conclude, looking back into the past of just one’s own life reminds us that the future will be bright and that the storm clouds will break sooner or later. In the meantime, I hope you like my headline ‘Be the silver lining and shine!’