This has been an amazing term with so many highlights and special achievements. Participation, ambition and breadth of opportunities are vital, but they all begin and end with a sense of belonging, the indefinable characteristic which lifts your mood and makes you love coming to school.

I have just completed a staff questionnaire where I was asked to use three words to describe working at Taunton School – my first and most important was ‘homely’: this is a place where my values align and throughout this term, I have seen pupils happy and therefore determined to ‘give it a go’. Operational Exceptional typifies this and is a great microcosm for the term. What started as a conversation between a tutee and her tutor suddenly grew into something huge, engaging and above all, fun. From code breaking (Maths) to team collages (Art) through to channel swims (Year 4) and rations (Marine rations rather than school food!) with assault courses and rousing renditions of ‘I vow to thee, my country’, if you could bottle the essence of ‘Operational Exceptional’ you would understand the Prep School at its very best.

Underpinning all is the constant reminder of us being humble and self-aware of how fortunate we are. The charities we supported – Scotty’s Little Soldiers and Rock2Recovery – are a reminder of how precious our lives are. I now have the chance to reflect on this (and my own lack of humility) as I lost my assault course race against Mr Coleman. Winning down the back straight I tried to do my best Mo Farah, blowing kisses to the crowd as I raced to my gold medal, only to be pipped on the line: you are never too old to be taught a painful lesson!  

If you would like to donate to these two worthy causes, please visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/operation-exceptional

So, as we head into a well-deserved break, I take my hat off to the wonderful pupils who smiled through the dark days of January; wore coats in the cold rain whilst playing ‘four square’; who (like Ava) challenged their staff to do something different and then thanked their staff when they took on the challenge and made it exceptional; who made someone’s day by smiling and asking them to play and all the time, turned up to class, performing arts, house events and sport with a determination to make each event special.  

Have a great Easter, 

Ed