A very poignant and moving Remembrance Service on Wednesday as the Year 8s led the school in a communal recognition of all those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. Credit to them and our superb trumpeters who performed a note perfect ‘Last Post’. I always think that those children, along with the person that opens the Carol Service with the Once in Royal David’s City solo, have the most stressful roles in any school’s annual calendar of events.
Those that have passed through Old Amersham over this period of Remembrance will have noticed that the Town Council have once again utilised our poppy veil that we created in 2022. It has become something of an annual tradition now to drape it over the Market Hall yet we continue to get messages, praising and thanking the school for putting it together. Whilst that has become the norm, the brains and creative direction behind the veil, our very own Ms Michelle Jackson, challenges herself and the Beacon boys and girls to come up with a different way to note this period of Remembrance on the school site. At the start of term, she proposed a display of poppies, painted onto tiles and then mounted. Sounded ambitious (and ultimately very heavy to display) but fear not, the resulting outcome is superb and exceeded all of my expectations. Initially displayed in the Spinney after our Service on Tuesday, the poppies will now be on permanent display in the Osborne corridors…with some heavy duty coach screws securing them to the wall.
In my Year 4 History class yesterday, we spoke about how the Romans were very superstitious and wove omens and rituals into all parts of their daily lives. Walking under ladders, cracks in pavements, even acknowledging a solitary magpie were discussed, along with Friday 13th. Opportune then that today of all days, Microsoft has a global outage that has put the world of communications into a spin. A coincidence? Almost certainly, but also a timely reminder that even with no email, the world keeps turning and we find ways to adapt. If anything, I have got lots done that I would not have been able to if I wasn’t on my email all day…maybe someone, somewhere is trying to tell the modern world something very profound…
Have a good weekend,
Nick Baker