Leadership Likes: Mr King

“Space – The Final Frontier” was brought to mind this week as pupils from Year 11 and Year 8 pitched their vision for the Astrogazers club to the Senior Leadership Team on Thursday. In short, they wish to send a weather balloon out to the edge of space! Effort, time, energy, enthusiasm and competence aside, I think they had won over their audience with the sheer concept alone!

It sparked a chain of thought about what pupils enjoy exploring, from the small and innocuous to the bigger and much scarier. We have had Zoom meetings this week involving the team departing for Zanzibar in a couple of weeks’ time. I’ve also seen a draft letter from the PE department about fundraising opportunities for the South Africa sports tour next autumn.

Both trips will undoubtedly open their eyes and minds to everything they see and experience. Our artists are also travelling to St Ives at half term to explore different scenery and workshops. The modern languages department has just bid Auf Wiedersehen to their German Exchange partners – the return leg taking place in February to Bonn. This exchange between Croydon High and Clara Schumann Gymnasium for the over 70 years – is a lifetime of exploration, bringing a deeper understanding of different cultures.

At the Year 8 Welcome Evening last night, some pupils excitedly asked permission to show their younger siblings the wonders of the Lecture Theatre. It was a mere 50 metres from where they were standing but appeared to be a voyage of discovery and enlightenment for these younger family members. Pupils across the school have been exploring the exciting range of new clubs and societies available in the Junior and Senior school; just like the school trips, these can be equally engrossing, offering the same opportunities to make pupils stop and think.

Exploring needn’t mean voyaging, of course. Exploring Electives in Year 10 are well underway, with the HPQ group considering titles on motorsport, writing a children’s book, considering how best to protect vulnerable wildlife or whether or not it is possible to make sustainable trousers. These are a few of the many fledgling projects that will have opened avenues of thought, word, and deed far beyond the GCSE curriculum.

This week’s letters included an invitation for Year 11 historians to go to the Old Operating Theatre and A level English to a variety of Literature seminars. The GCSE Geographers have just come back from fieldwork this week, ranging poles in hand, and the LRC hosted a Zoom call this morning for Young Reporters to meet with their mentor on the programme.

Space may have been the final frontier once upon a time, but at Croydon High School, it seems we enjoy exploring all physical and metaphorical frontiers.

Oh, and for more developments on the weather balloon… Watch this Space!

Mr King

Deputy Head (Pastoral)