This week I have spent a couple of days at the Annual Prep School Heads' Conference which for the first time was held at the same time in the same place as the HMC (senior schools) event. That meant that around 850 Heads of the UK’s major independent schools were in Edinburgh all sharing experiences and time together in the name of Education. A mix of important, but rather dry, sector relevant content including sessions on International projects were offset by inspirational insights from the likes of Dame Tani Grey-Thompson, Marc Randolph (co-founder of Netflix), Nicola Benedetti, Mona Siddiqui and the cheekiness of Rory Bremner. Added to that, Edinburgh is such a wonderful city with everything accessible on foot so you get to drink it in as you move about.
On top of the joy and purposefulness of positive educational introspection there was obviously talk of the wider world, too, with the now familiar shrugs of people somewhat flabbergasted by the sheer number of colliding uncertainties at present and the feeling of helplessness with what is happening around us seemingly out of our control.
For our part here ‘at home’ we can only continue to work with the children in our care and enjoy making their (and our) experience as good as it can be. Added to that, they are fabulously untouched by the myriad of external factors hence their innocence and playfulness is a powerful tonic for us all. You may well not be too far from a tonic yourself as you read this and I hope you enjoy reading the rest of this week’s Prep Newsletter at the same time.