She took the opportunity to talk to us about the importance of strong women. Women could, she argued, be strong in so many ways – the courage that it took to be a successful hockey player was something that could not be overestimated - but she chose as her reading a single verse from the Old Testament book Micah. It was as follows:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does theLordrequire of you?
To act justlyand to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
 

Very often, strong women were required to do less dramatic things than Miss Wessels had been able to achieve personally, and she spoke most movingly about her own mother who had quietly encouraged her on a daily basis and who had never pushed her to perform at an elite level in sport. In fact, her quiet encouragement had enabled Wessels to choose this path for herself. She asked us all to think of those women who had the true strength to support us every day, often humbly and justly, as the reading suggested. Very many of the parents afterwards said how moved they had been by her talk.

At coffee, Miss Wessels spoke about the Marlborough entrance procedures. She said that everybody,
however well they did on the entrance test, would be offered interviews. Furthermore, the references sent by the Prep Schools would be taken as seriously as the test. To my mind this shows a humane and sensible approach to admissions. As Miss Wessels put it, the test only happens on one day and the pupils will be at Marlborough for five years. No wonder that Marlborough continues to attract so many applicants.

I heard today about the Pre-Prep visit to the Woodland School. Over the past few months, the Woodland School has had a large amount of work done on it by the outstanding gardening team from Christ Church run by the incomparable Steve Howes. Yesterday Steve and some of his staff provided a workshop for the Pre-Prep on habitats and the Pre-Prep children were encouraged to help construct habitats for the animals which will come to live in the wood. The gardeners were so impressed by our pupils that they were all offered jobs on the gardening team of Christ Church. I’m not sure if the Treasury realises how much their salary bill in the gardening department will be increasing in the next few weeks! I also know that Career Development is an inherent part in the PSHE curriculum. We are seeing to this element of the course extremely early.

Another advantage of the Christ Church Cathedral School education is senior school applications. We have just heard back from Radley and St Edward’s and in both cases six out of seven of our pupils have been offered places. Both registrars were complimentary about the quality of our pupils - again I wish to thank our outstanding staff for the work they have done to ensure these incomparable results.

As I sit in my study writing this letter, I find myself surrounded completely by music. In one direction, I can hear a Romantic piano piece and above me I can hear a brass instrument – I can’t tell whether it’s a trombone or a horn (I should probably know) playing a well-known hit from a musical. The blood of the school is Music and, for almost everybody, outstandingly good music is just what happens in a normal day.

I have also found myself today doing a mock interview where we ranged over the differences between PG Woodhouse, Evelyn Waugh and Thomas Hardy, discussing the nature of comedy and tragedy and the tragic flaws of the heroine in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Just in the same way that playing music seems to be the natural thing to do, so nobody ever questions the importance of or the enjoyment of discussing such matters. Cultures and particularly those in schools, do help to create positive outcomes and, for me, hugely enjoyable conversations.