St Edmund's

On Friday, I got the opportunity to get out of my office and see some high quality classroom work.

My Symaka was working with his Upper Fifth on the Cold War.  The group were analysing a famous cartoon of Khrushchev and JFK arm wrestling for world dominance. The pupils’ insights were astute and well informed.

Then I dropped in on Mrs Wightman’s Upper Sixth Mathematics class.  They were doing some highly involved and complex work on sine and cosine.  Impressed, but instantly out of my depth, I moved rapidly on!

The Lower Fifth were in Science so I sneaked in to see Dr Fernandez running a practical lesson with the top set.  The pupils were highly focused and engaged by their work and, in fact, hardly even noticed I was there.

Ms Florence’s Upper Sixth Product Design class talked me through their ongoing project work and I finished up in Drama where a Chicago rehearsal was underway with Mr Sell, Mr Sykes and the team working at great intensity.

Two thing struck me about my tour.

(1) The extraordinary diversity of what is happening minute by minute in our school and

(2) The productive and positive interactions between pupils and teachers in every subject

Today, I have just returned from watching the Dance Group from Herne Bay High perform a demonstration and workshop for our Lower Fifth.  It was an excellent session and I am very grateful to the HBH group for taking the time to work so effectively with our pupils.