Headmaster's Weekly Reflection

One of the joys of the Headmaster role is its sheer variety, and I think I ticked off a new 'first' this week: a meeting with the leader of the St Mary's Church bell-ringing team about the possibility of introducing pupils to the joys of campanology. Those of you who live in Bruton will be well aware of the sound of the bells, not least on Sunday mornings and during their Wednesday evening practices. I wonder if you were aware, though, that one of the bells is almost 500 years old, having been struck in 1528 and sounded continuously since that point. There is something quite nice in considering that almost every single pupil to pass through King's will have heard that same sound ringing out from the tower during their time at the school. We are working towards offering pupils the opportunity to learn how to ring the bells as an activity next term, and in addition leading visits to the church to not only experience the spectacular views from the top, but also see the bells at first hand. 

We had a fantastic event on Thursday night where we welcomed those pupils joining the Third Form in September, and in particular gave them the opportunity to visit their Houses, and get to know the key staff as well as the pupils with whom they will become Housemates next year. Houses organised events and activities to help the pupils get to know each other, including everything from treasure hunts to egg-and-spoon races, while the BBQ and welcome arrival of an ice-cream van ensured that everyone was appropriately fed and watered, too. It is always a lovely moment when we start to see the emergence of our newest cohort of pupils, although it is slightly scary to think that these will be our Leavers in the summer of 2031... from the smiles and laughter it was clear that the evening was a great success though, and we are very much looking forward to welcoming these pupils for real in September. It is also important to note just how great our current pupils were on the evening: welcoming, kind, friendly and fun, and they all went out of their way to make sure the new joiners felt at home, and had a good time. They were perfect role models, and it is occasions like this that help to remind us that they are the school's greatest advert. 

Something else we ran on Thursday evening was an event for the parents of these new pupils, on the theme of devices and social media, and in the form of a Q&A with a panel consisting of current pupils and parents. It was a really positive event, and the feedback afterwards from those in the audience was of how useful and instructive they had found the panel's views. It is perhaps unsurprising that, given all of the press coverage surrounding issues relating to social media in particular, this remains a very high-profile issue for many parents and families. On that note I am very grateful to those of you who completed the survey that I sent out over half term on the matter of device usage. The new challenge that schools face is that, while having phones locked-away during the day was a positive step, the evolution of devices such as tablets and laptops now means that these can effectively act exactly like a phone, even down to making voice and video calls. I am of the view that during the school day we should be incentivising and prioritising in-person interactions and socialising as much as possible, and that this probably means a change to the way we manage device usage, and to our filtering and monitoring technology. We are still working through what this looks like, but as technology is an area which changes so quickly, so too must we be ready to adapt and change our own approach. As I have said before, I am no Luddite, and there is a time and a place for screens, and games, and watching films online. However, now more than ever I believe that the education of children must also involve the imparting and development of social, communication and in-person skills, and that will always be done far more powerfully by analogue interaction than can ever be achieved online. The question is not whether we should do this, but how. 

Matt Radley

Headmaster