Warm spring weather has finally arrived and you can sense a more relaxed atmosphere around the campus for the non-examination year groups! For our IB students, they are now in the middle of their examination season and are showing a calm, steady focus. The Year 11s have already started their GCSEs but their examination season starts in earnest next week. A study room is set aside for them when they are in school and between public examinations. We encourage everyone to remain focused and keep working hard until the last examination. It will come soon enough!

Other pupils have had a more carefree fortnight. The outdoor swimming lessons for the Junior School have been a great deal of fun and the Year 5 Residential at Ingleborough challenged the pupils to work together to do their best. I met up with them one evening, after they had had a great day out on the hills, to see them complete their Adventure log books, proudly ticking off all their achievements of the day.

At the Senior School, pupils have been out on their Bronze, Silver and Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions experiencing some wonderful weather as they did their hike and canoeing trek. There’s no getting away from the fact that if you go canoeing, at some point you are going to get wet and the ‘let’s do it anyway and have fun’ attitude is fantastic to see.

Young people need intense, challenging experiences where they can live in the moment. Outdoor activities are excellent in promoting a sense of alertness to the present as well as building confidence and team-working skills.

We also need to encourage them to think to the future and the annual visit of the University Guys was well received. Year 12 students have to start thinking seriously about their university choices this term and meeting university representatives from overseas really helps our students to think broadly about their future choices. Most of our Sixth Form, whether local or from overseas, will attend universities in the UK but some do choose to look abroad and this has become somewhat of a national trend in recent years. The University Guys were there to help prompt some of that thinking but it is also well worth students attending university open days too. Choosing your university is a big choice and it is important not to settle for the first one which impresses you but to keep looking until you have found two or three courses you really like.

Finally, I must add a huge thank you to Mr Jones who teaches Speech and Drama. The visiting examiner described us as a ‘very strong centre’. Out of the 29 pupils who took the examinations there were no Passes, three Merits and 26 Distinctions – an extraordinary set of results of which the each induvial should be very proud. Well done, everyone!

Frank Thompson

Head of Windermere School