From the Principal #112

Over the past couple of weeks it certainly has felt that Spring has arrived in London and, with the students back in classes, it does feel that things are moving back towards greater normality. It was fantastic last week to work with the new Student Council members during their team-building weekend and the energy and drive from our students continues to impress. With the previous Student Council members working on June’s Summer Ball and Graduation there is plenty to focus on beyond the assessments which are currently taking place.

It is also great to see our co-curricular activities taking place whether it’s the netball team, chess club, music lessons or students presenting in the Bigger Picture Society, there is so much on offer in the school and it is great to see the students getting involved. Last Thursday students were also involved in our first fencing co-curricular activity, an ideal sport for social distancing!

I would like to take the opportunity of celebrating the success of the community in the London to Jakarta challenge, set by the Head of Co-curricular, Sean Gallagher, at the beginning of January. This was prompted by the UK-wide school closures and the calculation that the DLD student who was furthest away from the College was in Jakarta, Indonesia. Sean set a challenge to all, asking them to record an exercise whether running, cycling, rowing or swimming and cumulatively the kilometres would be amassed to see whether we could reach the 11,714 km which we did in four months – congratulations to all who participated in any way, big or small.

This evening we will discover whether the College has been successful in this year’s TES Independent School Awards. We are already immensely proud to be shortlisted for the Wellbeing Initiative of the Year Award – a very relevant category with the variety of challenges that this year has presented. Additionally, we are delighted to have been shortlisted for the Boarding Schools’ Association Awards for Wellbeing and Mental Health Initiative and we will find out the winner on the 5th May.

Over this weekend the Greek Orthodox Easter take place and for those members of our community who are celebrating this weekend I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and for everyone a restful and sunny week ahead.

Best wishes

Tom

Thomas Hadcroft
Senior Vice-Principal