“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”
Meister Eckhart
We ended the summer term with our most exciting milestones yet, our first transition day with almost all our Founding Students, closely followed by our first Summer Camp which was also very well attended. Getting to know our students and our staff team better was the highlight of these events, seeing the enthusiasm and compassion of our staff members alongside the energy and wide-ranging skills of our students was an amazing insight into what next year will look like at Bohunt Horsham. A couple of highlights from Summer Camp can be seen below, Tilly holding a barn owl and Rafa holding a sandwich (from our own pop-up Subway) that was almost too much for his impressive appetite!
As I look back on the last eight months, since taking on this role, what strikes me is the power of parents. Our Founding Families have come to us from a wide range of paths, some have been with us since the start and some joining us much more recently but as the wonderful comments on our Facebook posts about Summer Camp show, they are our biggest supporters. I know that those families had a big decision to make in choosing the next school for their child, and I know that a few of those families didn’t get the school they choose but what they have in common is the commitment they have shown to getting this school off to the best start possible. At our recent Parent Reference Group meeting, parents shared their thoughts about issues that are key to keeping that relationship strong – home/school communication and the cost of school trips and visits were on the agenda and the feedback from the meeting has been pragmatic, useful and above all else, supportive. School leaders, rightly, spend a great deal of time making decisions for their students and their staff but inadvertently those decisions also impact on parents.
Our Founding Families are a huge part of our community, the faith they put in us when applying for a place at Bohunt Horsham, a school that hasn’t yet opened its doors, is something I do not take for granted. What I see as my responsibility in return for that faith is honesty. I know that there have been rumours on social media and reports about delays to the site, but when I met our Founding Families in July I was clear; yes – we have shifted our timeline for moving into the permanent site from September 2020 slightly and we now plan to move into the permanent school during our second year. There is sufficient space in the temporary school to take a second year group in September 2020 without compromising our educational offer at all. When I have a definite date for that move, I will share it first with our parent community and then with the local community. Our Founding Families’ faith in our school is what has already made it such a success – almost full in our first year, competitive fields for recruitment in all our staffing positions and positive pre – opening events – and I value that faith and support immensely.
Looking ahead, we will soon have a new group of parents to add to our community; in October, local families will again be looking for year seven places for their children and we are holding our first Open Evening on Wednesday 2 October from 17.00-20.00 at Arun House. During this event, plans and a model for the permanent school will be on display. I will be talking to prospective parents about facilities in both the temporary and the permanent sites, of course, but what I will focus on and what is important above all else is our approach to education. Prospective families will hear about our ethos of enjoy respect achieve and our vision of creating and celebrating students who are ‘game-changers’, taking bold steps and challenging the world around them to become a better place. After all, it isn’t buildings that make a school, it is people. Our people are already a community to which I am proud to belong.
On our website, www.bohunthorsham.com we have a ‘register your interest’ button. If you would like to be kept informed of our progress, are interested in our student admissions or staff recruitment please use this button to join our mailing list.
You can also follow us on Twitter: @BohuntH and Facebook: www.facebook.com/bohuntH
