My Top 5 This Week
Challoner’s girls will know that I am a Top 5s man. After a Top 5 themed Headlines in September, I have restrained myself since. However, I have had a particularly enjoyable week and so here follows my Top 5 This Week.
5. Finding out more about Lucy King’s judo. I have had several brief chats with Lucy about judo whilst doing my lunch queue duty, but the line keeps moving and I had only picked up snippets. A longer chat on Wednesday was really uplifting. Lucy has clearly surprised herself with her success – her confidence has built and she has just clinched gold in the under 21 category of an interna-tional competition, despite being in Year 11. Mrs Meredith told me, “Lucy is a great person and is very well rounded”. Lucy will compete in the European Cup in the Czech Republic this weekend before switching her focus to preparing for exams. We wish her well.
4. Meeting our new Year 7 parents at our Partnership with Parents evening. One of the great pleasures in schools is getting to know young people and supporting them as they transform from bright eyed but slightly hesitant Year 7s to Sixth Formers who have grown in confidence, ability and resilience and are ready to contribute significantly to the world. It is therefore always partic-ularly exciting to meet the next intake of parents and subsequently at July’s induction their daughters. We had an upbeat evening yesterday and welcomed our new parents to the school community.
3. The buzz of anticipation from staff on Monday at our INSET day. The possibilities of a new term are always exciting and it has been lovely to catch up with our refreshed staff who have such a strong sense of commitment and focus and also have an instinct for the fun, creative and clever.
2. A pivotal and very exciting meeting with Anna Eggleton about future developments at DCHS. Anna is a Challoner’s parent and also works with major businesses to support and facilitate strategic and brand development. Anna, along with Charlotte Vicary, have been very generous with their time in helping us shape a far reaching, cohesive and inspiring vision and five year plan for developing our school. We look forward to presenting full details in the Autumn Term.
1. Meeting Flora Allum to find out more about her amazing A Level Textiles project. My goodness this was inspirational. Flora told me that professional women heading into London, “Look smart but then it rains and ruins everything”. The coat she has de-signed and made adapts to different weather conditions and looks incredible. It has a waterproof and removable, yet very classy, outer layer and then a fabulously stylish fabric inner jacket for better weather. For Flora, Textiles is a subject, a hobby and a pas-sion and spending 15 minutes with her was the highlight of my week.
Best wishes for a really good weekend,
Alan Roe
