It has been a great week at Wallingford School.

Our school production of Legally Blonde is simply wonderful – there is top-notch singing and dancing, a brilliantly colourful set, fantastic costumes, make-up and lighting and the whole show is a joy to see. There are still two nights and a matinee to go but it has all come together fantastically well and we could not be more proud of everyone involved.

On Wednesday, the visit of Olympic Gold medal winning triathlete Alex Yee, to speak to Years 11 and 13 and aspiring athletes, was everything we hoped it would be. Alex spoke very well indeed about his life and background, his training and achievements and what drives him to succeed in a way which was highly engaging and personable. He answered a huge number of really excellent questions from our students with humour and empathy covering everything from the experience of the final metres of the Olympic triathlon in Paris in 2024 to his diet and his running shoes also covering gaming (he plays Fortnite), energy drinks (best avoided) and even admitted to being a Crystal Palace fan. In short, it was an absolute pleasure to welcome him to our school and I would like to thank his team, the Merchant Taylors’ Company for providing the link with him and Alex himself for being such a great role model for our young people.

Wallingford School is at the heart of its community and it has been a pleasure to welcome so many children from our feeder Primary Schools to our site this week. They joined us for the final dress rehearsal of Legally Blonde on Monday afternoon and most of them came back again on Tuesday for an indoor athletics event in the Sports Hall. I think that they enjoyed themselves and it was really good to have them with us getting a flavour of secondary school – those who walked to us also seemed to get lucky in avoiding the rain!

We have hosted a great STEM event, had a lot of sports fixtures and an Intermediate Maths Challenge amongst other things. In a week when it has rained quite a lot, the spirit and energy of our school have shone through.