The time had come again for an airing of the Roald Dahl version of the Three Little Pigs. This being CCCS though, our version was different. Mrs Fairhurst had written some extra scenes and we had inserted into the well-known drama of pig consumption, the stories of Jack and the Beanstalk, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It was a most entertaining afternoon. I was delighted that the pig who was not consumed by the wolf, was elegantly wearing a CCCS tie – though he did end up getting shot – but that’s another story. As ever the singing was beautifully done, the audience being able to hear every single word, and the performances were full of panache and invention. Indeed, one of the highlights was the extremely gruesome and dramatic death of the wolf, another victim of a shooting, the weapon having been drawn from a pair of grandmaternal knickers! There were creatures of every conceivable type - a mono-syllabic goose who laid empty eggboxes, three pigs (of course), a wolf (naturally), and animals of the forest, as well as a mother in whose gargantuan hairdo several birds could have nested. As winter closed in, it was a real delight to experience this delightful performance and I’d like to thank all the staff, pupils and parents (as the costumes were mainly sourced from home) for making the whole thing possible.

I am delighted that the number of dogs coming to school is on the increase again, after a period when dogs have been few and far between. We have a long history of having dogs in the school and it is very clear that the boys love them. Mrs Davies, who is covering Alma’s maternity leave, is kindly bringing in her beautiful dog Daisy, who sits beside her in the Front Office. Daisy is unique. It is difficult to pin down her breed as she is a combination of 17 different breeds, as revealed by a DNA test. Meanwhile, I have started bringing in Trebetherik, our 15 year old Cocker Spaniel. Trebetherick, who some of you may recognise, is named after a Cornish village, is over 100 in human years and is somewhat short of sight and hard of hearing and has no teeth left , but he is certainly a source of great fascination for the pupils, and is always given the warmest of welcomes. I was asked if I could bring him into the Pre-Prep assembly this morning and he was mobbed. I’m not sure whether he fully realised that he would become a superstar in his old age. One devoted disciple was patting him and asked how old he was – I told him that he was extremely old – indeed at 100, he was even older than me. “Older than you?” responded the disciple - “WOW!”

Mrs Evans, the Head of Wychwood School in North Oxford, came to talk to us in the Cathedral this morning. She spoke about a job which she used to have as a presenter on a show where an audience was introduced to various hideous animals like beetles, toads and snakes. It was known colloquially as the “Urrrr Show” because of the cries of disgust uttered by the assembled studio audience. Many of the children who met these creatures found themselves frightened of them and it was fear that she partly wished to talk about. Education should not be about fear, Mrs Evans suggested, but about holding true to the concepts enunciated in the Bible by St Paul, and which had been the subject of the reading we had heard earlier in the service from his letter to the Philippians:

“whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.”

Much of what schools are here to do is contained within those few words.

Following her moving words we heard Leo perform some Mozart variations. He played for ten blissful minutes – a wonderful pause in the day when the whole school sat quietly listening together to the sound of sublimity. It is a piece that Leo is preparing for his Diploma – the grade one tackles after one has achieved Grade 8. Given that Leo is in Form 7, this is staggering - even by the standards of CCCS! Sometimes I have to pinch myself – this is not a dream!