Who would believe that we are at the end of Week 3 already?! It has been a hundred miles an hour at Willington this week, with clubs starting and the boys getting to experience all the extra curricular activities that are on offer. It was great to see them at Judo Club with Eric; did you know he fought for GB? I didn’t, so I was impressed that the boys get tuition from someone with such experience. As well as the favourites, such as Fencing, Orchestra and Drama, it’s been so good to see boys trying our new clubs including Bridge and Current Affairs. The ever popular Book Club will be ably supported next week by the arrival of the Travelling Book Fair - do look out for further info from Mrs Hamidon. Mrs Hamidon is also busy planning our trips to the Wimbledon Bookfest in October, of which we are proud supporters.

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting the great institution of Dulwich College in the company of their Headmaster, Dr Joe Spence. If you ever get the chance to visit, do make sure you go to the Great Hall and have a look at their Honours Boards; really quite impressive. We were entertained by a short excerpt from their middle school drama production, which was inspirational. I really feel that our boys are very lucky to have such good schools on offer to them, which allow their talents to be developed to such a very high standard.

Assembly on Tuesday included a visit from the Curate of St Luke’s Church, Andrew O’Brien, who retold the Parable of the Prodigal Son in a child friendly manner that had the boys enthralled. Artem was happy to begin with, until he’d spent all his money on parties and balloons!  Although he ended up with no money, spending it on good living and was ‘lost’, in the end he was ‘found’. Hopefully the boys learned about forgiveness and reconciliation as being very much part of growing up. Andrew has promised to come back to Willington to speak to the boys again in the future, which I am sure they will enjoy.

On the sporting front, we have had some considerable success. On a rather breezy afternoon, which at times resembled the cyclone from the opening scenes of the Wizard of Oz with debris swirling around, the 1st 5-a-side team went to Twickenham Prep for their opening tournament of the season. It is always an enjoyable afternoon and the boys did not let anyone down competing against some strong opposition. Captain Geno was the only survivor from last year’s event in a largely inexperienced team. Ollie was outstanding on his debut in goal, producing some wonderful saves with one reminiscent of Gordon Banks v Brazil in 1970! We will be working on composure in front of goal among other things in the coming sessions, but well done to all the boys as we move onto our regular 11-a-side fixtures against Homefield and Westminster Cathedral next week. The boys’ heads never dropped and this experience will stand them in good stead moving forward. We also had a very successful set of matches against Aberdour further down the school that you can see on the sports website.

Another busy week was rounded off with Jeans for Genes Day organised by Miss Burns and the School Council. Thank you to them for making this such a fun day (see picture) and raising money for this very important cause. 

Thank you to all our parents who have taken the time to fill in the parents’ survey this week. It has been very interesting to read the comments and we have already held meetings to discuss how we can adopt some of the suggestions. It is important to me that we work in partnership so that the school can thrive. If we all approach it with a shared vision of making Willington the best school it possibly can be, then who knows where we’ll end up.

Mr Keith Brown, Headmaster
@willingtonhead