A new enrichment at CCCS this term is Woodland Art. Mrs Zeb and I take a small group of boys over to the playing fields, on a Friday afternoon to explore and create in the beautiful woodland area.

Woodland Art combines creative art activities with outdoor learning in a woodland setting. It offers our boys a unique opportunity to explore creativity while engaging directly with nature, observing textures, colours, sounds, and seasonal changes to inform their artistic expression.

To wander into the choristers’ Song Room at Christ Church is to encounter a pleasing anachronism: small boys in immaculate new cassocks, hurrying with a seriousness that would shame most cabinet ministers, intent on plainsong more than punctuality. One expects a heady mixture of incense and discipline, Latin and lashings of stoicism. What one discovers instead is something at once more human and more subversive: a republic of treble voices, sustained by mischief, ambition and a surprisingly robust sense of humour.

PSHE is one of the smallest subjects in terms of the amount of timetabled time but I would argue that it is one of the most important. PSHE is about how we relate to ourselves, to our families and school, and to the wider world. It has a timetabled lesson slot once a week from Form 1 to Form 8 and is always taught by the form teacher, so that he or she understands how the pupils are thinking and feeling and can continue to support them throughout their school life. (There is no need for a specific lesson in Nursery or Reception, as Personal, Social and Emotional Development runs through everything they do.)

Life in the boarding house is, at first glance, a triumph of routine over chaos. On closer inspection, it is chaos that has agreed, temporarily, to wear a timetable. Each day begins not with inspiration but with the blunt insistence of the Form 8’s alarm clock, a device whose sole moral purpose is to remind us that sleep is a privilege, not a right. Beds are made and dorms inspected, thus initiating even the most reluctant boarder into the unromantic but essential business of self-reliance. By breakfast, one has already learned that civilisation is a fragile construct, upheld by punctuality, toast and the ever-sunny disposition of our chef, Sinisa.

Following Macbeth’s success as last year’s summer play, and the more recent Form 8 production of The Three Musketeers in French, it was only a matter of time before someone asked the question, why not give the boys real swords? Apparently, this is considered unwise, but Mrs Fairhurst found the next best thing: the British Fencing Core Coaching Programme.

Within our Pre-Prep, we work hard to develop Creative, Curious, Collaborative, and Self-confident learners. We achieve this by taking a holistic approach, in which every child is known deeply, and their uniqueness celebrated and encouraged.