November 16th 2019
Last weekend Moulsford had a stand at the Independent Schools Show in Battersea. Moulsford was one of 240 schools exhibiting at this extremely well attended event, which ran for all of Saturday and Sunday, with a drinks do for exhibitors on Saturday evening. Moulsford’s aim was to raise the school’s profile for those parents who are considering a move out of London. We are not currently looking to attract boarders out of London on a weekly basis.
Besides being an excellent opportunity to talk to London parents about Moulsford, there were a series of very interesting talks and I was able to sneak away from the Moulsford stand to listen to Patrick Derham (Head of Westminster) discuss the future of education; and the Heads of Sherborne and Oundle talk about the single sex and co-ed debate along with Cheryl Giovannoni (the Chief Executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust).
The show also provided an extremely good forum in which to discuss all kinds of educational issues with experts from the sector. Heads and Registrars of many of Moulsford’s senior schools were also present and I was able to have a number of very useful conversations with key senior school staff. Thank you to those Moulsford staff who joined Sarah B-G and I on the stand over the weekend.
On Monday I spent the day at Harrow. I had excellent individual meetings with both Alastair Land (the Head) and Eric Sie (the Registrar), and it is very clear that Harrow would like to continue to develop links with Moulsford. Alastair Land will be visiting Moulsford on 9th January 2020 to talk to all Year 5 parents about factors for them to consider when deciding upon a senior school for their boys. Three Moulsford boys will join Harrow in September 2020.
Eric Sie joins myself and 185 other guests at the RAC lunch in London today. Along with Harrow, representatives from Cheltenham College, Marlborough College, Millfield, Radley, St. Edward’s Oxford, Sherborne, Stowe, The Oratory and Wellington will also be attending the lunch.
As well as developing close links with senior schools, it is also very useful to keep in close touch with other prep school Heads. I am on the Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS) committee for our local district, which comprises of roughly one hundred prep schools. Sir Clive Woodward has links with Moulsford through Emerson in Year 8, who departs to Tignes today for the winter to train with Apex2100 where Sir Clive is Director of Sport. Last night I organised for Sir Clive to speak to our IAPS group of Heads. He gave an excellent talk entitled “DNA of a Champion”, and also shared some very interesting insight into England’s demise against South Africa earlier this month.
Ben Beardmore-Gray
#MPSHeadsBlog
