…or at least that’s how it is beginning to feel. The glorious summer sunshine and the marquee in the garden of No11, the oldest building on the school campus were the tell-tale signs that the close of the academic year is nearly with us. It was slightly galling to attend the Prize Giving at my wife’s school last weekend; it was their last day of term and a number of cheerful staff wished me well for the final fortnight, knowing that come Monday they would have the delicious option of ignoring the alarm and simply turning over to resume slumber. No matter – these final working days will pass in a flash, I’m sure, with the kaleidoscope of activities to come between now and 19 July. The end of the summer term may be an exercise in endurance (for everyone!) but it is never dull.
This time of the school year has a ritualistic element to it at Bishop’s. The whole of Year 7 have recently visited their Great Yews Camp, by kind permission of the Longford Estate, accompanied by a battalion of staff and a regiment of prefects. This year the summer sunshine blessed that expedition too, so that the tents stayed dry and the camp fires were quick to light, though the quality of the cuisine was still open to question. The older boys replicate this foray into the great outdoors with Duke of Edinburgh expeditions; I dropped off boys working for their Gold Award in the Black Mountains last Friday, their greatest need being for sunscreen, water and hats rather than waterproofs. Sports Day will follow inevitably, though this year we will have to split the event into its component age groups on separate days because of the maintenance work on the Five Rivers Track. Competition will still be fierce I am sure, as the House Teams vie for supremacy. We have groups from junior schools visiting to experience the scale and pace of learning at big school, and there is an atmosphere permeating the school site of the drawing together of loose threads and the completion of things
Come final assembly we’ll all be ready to go. Twelve midday sees an explosion of humanity through the school gates as the boys and staff pour out into Salisbury, homeward all, and thence to many parts of the globe. I will be amongst them (eventually), as I disappear for two weeks in the mountains, mobile and laptop-free. My hope is that the final week of school fires the imaginations for the boys so that their summer focuses more on books and boots than megabytes, and that the summer break brings new experiences and priceless memories for all of our boys’ families.
SDS
