The Roundup - Edition 78

A message from 
Rich Jones, Head.

A few times a week I try to go into the main courtyard of the Senior School, lean against the wooden frame outside the Mulberry Building, and watch as the school goes about its day. It really is the epicentre of the Senior School.

Pupils file through, laden with bags and deep in conversation; a ball bounces across the paving; a teacher laughs heartily with a student; groups drift in and out of Mulberry; staff grab a quick tea or dash to the loo; and usually someone is utterly destroying a song on the wonderfully out-of-tune piano that has taken up residence outside the ICT block.

I make myself do this, and never regret it. There are times, as a Head, when you are office-bound, caught in meetings, discussions and spreadsheets, while guiding the good ship St Chris downstream. But it is those moments leaning against that wooden fence that I enjoy the most. You can see and feel the school in motion: confident, purposeful and, above all, happy.

On Thursdays, I have started doing something similar in the Junior School. It is the same joy and purpose, though with slightly more snotty noses and fancy dress. What I noticed this week, though, is that we are well into what I used to call in my boarding days “A&E season”. Deep into autumn, deep into the year, and the time when children start appearing with more casts, crutches and slings. I imagine it will always be thus, at least until AI develops proactive cushioning.

I have had my fair share of broken bones, not always rugby-related, as my mother would tell you, but mostly down to “me being me”. I remember, as a little one, spending a few days in hospital with a combination of broken fingers and ear grommets (remember those?). I took my teddy bear with me and was a bit freaked out by the whole thing: the ward, the doctors prodding, the looming operation. One nurse asked me what my very bedraggled bear was called. I had not given him a name, so in a burst of creative genius, I christened him on the spot: “Teddy… urm… Weddy.” I still have him. Moments later, the nurse returned with a tiny wristband for Teddy Weddy so that “we were a team.” I will never forget that. Such a simple act, but one that transformed the whole experience.

What that nurse did was deceptively simple but profoundly important. In child development, we know that moments of genuine attunement, when an adult notices, names and responds, build emotional security. They tell a child: you matter, you are seen, you are safe. These small, ordinary interactions become the architecture of confidence. It is the same in schools: a teacher remembering your dog’s name, a friend waiting when you drop your pencil case, a lunchtime joke that turns a day brighter. These are not extras to the curriculum; they are the curriculum of human development.

So, when I stand in the courtyard watching the ebb and flow of the day, I find myself quietly scanning for those moments, the small, human gestures that tell me they are happening all the time. Bags being carried for someone struggling on crutches, a teacher stopping to listen even though moments earlier they were purposefully heading somewhere, a student holding a door open for an LSA, a crisp packet picked up without being asked, a servery joke that makes a nervous Year 7 smile. All things I have seen this week.

Those moments are vital. They are the ones children carry with them long after exams and grades fade. They are the exact thing that shapes kindness and empathy I guess, the quiet work that makes a community…

I would love to tell you that was my last hospital visit, but alas, broken bones have been something of a recurring theme. The worst rugby injury was when part of my forearm bone shot into my elbow joint, hugely painful. Hugely dramatic. And yes, just to reiterate, it was a rugby injury…though technically it happened after the game, in the changing room, when I tripped over my own kit bag. Still counts, I reckon.