Last week’s Prep School literary festival passed very well. It has been a real pleasure to hear pupils in Years 4 to 6 getting to grips with Shakespeare, from the Dream to Romeo and Juliet, with a little Hamlet along the way. We continue to raise the profile of reading, with a few posters from the National Literacy Trust’s “Reading Champions” campaign up around the school - I’d encourage you to take some time over the long bank holiday weekend to not only listen to your child read, but also let them listen to you read, and perhaps chat a bit about your favourite books, now and in the past. Mrs Wilding’s book fair proved very popular, and I’d like to record my thanks to her for the extra time she spent away from writing and researching to run this; we are very fortunate to have her expertise on hand, and if your son or daughter is ever lost for ideas of what to read next, a visit to our Prep School library would be highly recommended. We were pleased to welcome two librarians from Alton to the Lower Prep last week, and we’ve been invited to display some of our pupils’ work in the library next month; encouraging your child to make use of the local library can do much to promote a love of reading, as well as independent learning.
The jubilee walk was a magnificent occasion, and the palpable sense of community as we set out on our various walks is something I’ll treasure for a long time. The walk was made all the more satisfying by the knowledge that we were contributing to crucial education out in India through your generous sponsorship; many thanks. The jubilee celebrations continue next week, and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at Wednesday’s arts festival (NB, no hot lunches for R-Y6), for which rehearsals are well under way, as well as at next Saturday’s Open Day.