Thursday 24th September

At the moment I am writing to you from the back of a Delta Airlines Airbus 330. Onboard wifi allows me to communicate with the outside world. Below us is an unimaginably vast vista of land – Canada stretches before us as far as the eye can see but there are no roads or houses or signs of human habitation. The world is truly remarkable. I am accompanying the Cathedral Choir on its 500th anniversary tour to the US. I am particularly enjoying the fact that the 500th anniversary of the foundation of the Choir (and hence the School) coincides with the 250th anniversary of the country we are visiting, namely the United States of America – that makes us twice as ancient as our host nation! Two of the choristers have already joined the Delta Airways flight crew by walking through the cabin collecting rubbish – or garbage as it seems to be called here. Talking of differences between English and US English, I was again reminded of one of my favourite and potentially life-changing variants – as we taxied down the tarmac at Heathrow, the American captain of our plane announced, with absolutely no hint of panic: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be taking off momentarily!” Fortunately, the take-off which we shortly thereafter undertook has so far led to a flight which has lasted for several hours and we are now closing in on our first destination, Minneapolis, where we are to give our first concert. Everyone seems to be having an enjoyable time though I confess that the boys are watching different films from the one I chose!

It is always a pleasure to welcome new pupils to the School and we have a large number joining us this term. I very much hope they will be happy here; certainly that’s the impression they have given this week. And with their arrival come parents whom I would also like to welcom. Parents are central to our School. Meanwhile in terms of staff, we are joined by a new Bursar, Mrs North who comes to us from Godstowe School in Buckinghamshire. I asked the pupils what they thought a Bursar was and one helpful person answered that “They looked after the money!” I am certain that Mrs North will do just that most successfully. We are also joined by Mr Blake who has been working at King’s College School in Cambridge and singing in the world-famous Chapel Choir there. He occupies the new position of Assistant Director of Music and will help support Miss Biddell in maintaining the extraordinary musical standards that we enjoy here. May I wish them all the best?

Sports Day was a real treat this year. We started with the Pre-Prep races at Noon. It is clear that the competitive urge begins early in life as I have rarely seen such intense determination. The only place where this was more obvious was the parent race afterwards where clearly the mothers and fathers wished to impress their offspring! The Prep Sports Day was a fiesta of competition and right up until the moment that Madame Loyer, in this case in her role as mother of the Head Boy, gave out the cups, everyone was doing everything to ensure that their house won. There can be no finer place to watch sport than Merton Field. It was a very happy day indeed.

This week has been an immensely studious few days in that all the Prep School have been doing exams. The Form Eights have been doing their Common Entrance, the final exam of their time at school - all boys at our School still do this exam even if very many senior schools no longer require it, though some still do, we feel strongly that practice of exams is an immensely important skill that we ought to be teaching our pupils. My firm belief, having spent most of my career in senior schools, is that those people who arrive at senior school knowing how to take exams tend to do much better in them at GCSE at a level. We all know that exams are not the be all and end all of education - very far from it, but it is important to have ways of testing people and of gauging how well they are performing.

As ever this Year’s House Music Competition was a triumph and an extraordinary pleasure for those attending. Mr Dawson, the new Head of Music at Oundle School in Northamptonshire, and one of the largest schools in the country, was immensely impressed with the quality of the players. He congratulated me heartily but of course it is so many other people who more properly deserve the congratulations. I must point out the extraordinary efforts to which Miss Biddell has gone to, over the past fortnight, to hear all the auditions (which were in their hundreds) and then to work with the finalists. The fact that music is within the bricks and mortar of the buildings and in the soul of the school is also very much to do with Miss Biddell.

For me most of this week has been taken up with the Choir Schools’ Association Conference which was held, this year, at Christ Church. Proceedings kicked off with Choral Evensong broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. It was an extraordinary experience to see a building I know so well transformed into a recording studio. The choir was on breath-taking form and I would encourage you very strongly to listen to the recording either on Sunday afternoon, when it will be broadcast again, or on iplayer. Mr Holder had chosen a hugely ambitious programme which began with a piece by our first organist, the great John Taverner, Dum Transisset Sabbatum, a haunting piece of great profundity and beauty, which had been written by Taverner to be sung in the Cathedral itself. Almost all of the music was unaccompanied, making it far harder than were it supported by an organ, and yet it was utterly perfect. I felt very proud of our choristers and very many of the Heads of the other choir schools were extremely impressed by what they had heard.