It’s the start of a new term. Each year we welcome new students and families mainly for Year Seven and for the Sixth Form. It’s been a delight welcoming a record-breaking number. We wish them every success as we ultimately guide them towards independent learning and great future destinations.
Despite our popularity, we pride ourselves on reasonable class sizes. It’s the ultimate strength of the private system. However, it does not seem right that every child across the nation does not experience a reasonable class size and the support and opportunities this provides.
I wanted to be a Headteacher because I wanted to make a difference particularly for teaching and learning leading to good outcomes, opportunity and support. This ambition was established through my own successful school Sixth Form experience. In a smaller learning environment with teachers who could get to know you, I was able to thrive. I have never looked back.
We have hopefully sustained that ethos here with students having a good choice of subjects. I enjoy the varied combinations that students opt for. In time, these lead to all kinds of exciting and unique futures.
At the same time, political pressures often under the mistaken guise of ‘efficiency’ lead education providers towards larger class sizes. There does come a point when this may not be effective. If strong research was ever carried out, I would hypothesise that there is an optimum size of a school in terms of a good quality education. I would very much hope that our school and Sixth Form would be close to this ‘mythical’ number.
In the meantime, we can embed our philosophy with lots of good subjects and opportunities with students working with qualified staff.
Philip Hurst
Headteacher