People often ask me whether I enjoy my job.  My standard reply is that being a Head Master is like most roles; there are parts I love, parts I enjoy, and parts I really don’t!  Thankfully, the moments of joy far outweigh the more challenging ones.  Last Friday evening was a perfect reminder of that.

It has been wonderful to hear this week about the extraordinary array of educational visits that took place over the half-term break. From two trips to Finland, a Year 8 and 9 Hockey tour to Jersey, a Third and Fourth XV rugby tour to Biarritz, a Sixth Form trip to Paris, to a CCF camp in Leek – each offered its own distinctive experience, yet all offered new challenges, fresh perspectives, and lasting memories.

The summer holidays already seem like a dim and distant memory.  To my mind the most valuable thing about the long holiday is that it allows us to step outside our normal routines. Term time is full — lessons, homework, sport, music, CCF, drama, House events, exams. It is busy and structured. But in the summer, there is space.

I am often asked to justify Warwick’s status as an all-boys school. Popular wisdom casts them as relics of a bygone era – breeding grounds for misogyny and privilege, perpetuating patriarchal norms. In my opinion, the opposite is true. An all-boys school offers us an opportunity to have honest conversations about what it means to be a man in today’s world.

One of the most difficult, and yet vital, tasks for any school is to prepare young people not just for the world as it is, but for the world as it may become. That world is never static. And today, change feels faster, deeper and more complex than ever.