Dear Old Brutonians,

Happy New Year to the Old Brutonian community and best wishes to you all for a safe and healthy 2021. At King’s, we have now returned to remote education, however the whole process is more straightforward then during the first lockdown, because we obviously have all our remote teaching learning systems already in place. The School has again moved the whole timetable remotely onto MS Teams and we have republished King’s Spirit.

Housemasters/mistresses and Tutors are providing excellent pastoral support for pupils, increasingly with 1:1 meetings, as many pupils struggle to come to terms with another extended period away from school and away from their friends.

We have started a Strava inter-house run and cycle challenge, and OBs are very welcome to join in a staff/parents/OB team, while we are finalising plans for a remote inter-house music competition. The staff and pupils are coping well, but everybody wants to return to normal school as soon as possible.  For details of how to join the Strava competition, please email BGH@kingsbruton.com.

Work is well underway to increase capacity of Wellesley House and it's been great to see the traffic calming improvements outside New House and on the crest of the Plox, both of which will greatly improve pedestrian safety. There was recently an extraordinary Governors’ meeting to agree on the adjusted fee for remote education, which has now been settled and communicated to parents. King’s Bruton and Hazlegrove are in a relatively strong position but, inevitably, the pandemic is having a significant impact on the Foundation’s finances. It will take time for us to recover and it will be wonderful if any OBs felt able and willing to support the School as we move out of this pandemic. I very much hope to restart The Sir Peter Squire Memorial Pavilion appeal in the Summer and I also hope that the OB community will want to rally to ensure that this project is a success. The campus restructure plan is even more important now that we are in Lockdown 3 and there will be opportunity for OBs to help support the exciting refurbishment of the Old House building.  I will write again soon with more news of our plans.

It is strange to be emailing you from an empty school campus, but King’s staff and pupils are working hard to make the most of remote teaching and learning. Pupil numbers for 2021 are very encouraging and I anticipate that we will be at capacity again with 350 pupils at King’s in September 2021. The School is facing another serious challenge, but we will come through strongly, and I appreciate all the messages of support from the Old Brutonian community.

Floreat Brutonia