8 November 2019

It has been a truly inspiring and exciting Explorers Week in school!

As well as challenging themselves to scale our climbing wall and tackle our assault course, our pupils have also headed off on brilliant trips, learnt about everything from famous adventurers to extreme climates, and enjoyed the privilege of meeting an amazing range of real life explorers. The incredible array of learning opportunities on offer to our boys and girls has been simply staggering.

The week’s visitors provided unforgettable highlights, including a fantastic morning with Sir Ranulph Fiennes, described in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s greatest living explorer. During a fascinating, humour-filled assembly to the whole school, Sir Ranulph described his incredible adventures, complete with the many challenges he faced and overcame. He then joined groups of pupils from across Senior and Junior School in a series of Q&As that saw them discovering even more about venturing into some of the world’s most unforgiving territories. It was wonderful to see Sir Ranulph’s overarching message about the power of motivation, resolve and self-belief resonating strongly amongst pupils, chiming as it does with our own school ethos and our motto, Through The Willow To The Heights.

This theme was also echoed in inspiring talks by Lt Cd David Cummings who joined us to vividly bring to life the challenges of climbing Mount Everest, and adventurer and explorer Charlie Walker who described his amazing 43,000 mile expedition across the globe on his bicycle! Arranging visits like these allows us to really boost pupils’ self belief by showing them that even the most impressive achievements are not beyond their grasp with hard work and determination on their side.

Explorers Week also saw pupils heading back in time for a Jurassic Dig at Wittenham Clumps, meeting Search and Rescue Dogs and their handlers, and enjoying a workshop on life in the most extreme climates at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum. Meanwhile, a visit from the History Man saw younger pupils studying the history of the continents and the famous explorers who discovered them, complete with lots of fantastic costumes and dressing up! Elsewhere, groups of Seniors enjoyed Science-focused trips to both Porsche and environmental hydraulics experts, HR Wallingford, giving them great insights into the wide world that awaits them beyond school. Please do take a look at this week’s album for just some of this busy week’s events.

Tomorrow will mark the culmination of this exciting week in school as we open our doors to the local community. Alongside our assault course and climbing wall, we will also play host to a hot air balloon, a Viking village, Arctic Trucks (from Top Gear) and an immersive caving experience, to name but a few activities. All of our Junior families are warmly invited to join us between 10am and 12 noon to take part in the fun and view some of the wonderful work created in school this week.

With best wishes
Dr James Raymond