Headmaster's Blog

2020-09-04

As a teacher for the last 24 years, it has often felt that my world has a pattern which is unstoppable and revolves between term time and holiday period with an unstoppable force.  When our pupils returned on Wednesday, they had been physically away from school for 166 days, the longest period in my career without the routine of term time.  

You might have thought it would come as a relief to have a break from the routine, but, quite the opposite; teaching and school life for me (and I suspect for most teachers) is not a job but a vocation - it is not something that we do, it is what and who we are.  And so to see our staff return on Monday and then the pupils on Wednesday was a huge relief to us all.  Our world is complete again and we are back in the groove doing what we do.  

As I said to the children on Wednesday morning, many things might have changed since we left, but many more things have stayed the same.  And I believe we have discovered that what the horse said to the boy in Charlie Mackesy’s book is true, the blue sky above the dark clouds never leaves and the dark clouds always move on.  A good lesson in the value of optimism....

John F Gilmour
Headmaster

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