The Stonar Way 22.05.26

When I speak to families about what life is like in a Prep School, I often say something to the effect that children rarely remember the English or Maths lessons I teach them, but they remember PE and playtimes. Like many of you, I am sure that when you ask your child what they have been up to at school, the answer is often “not much”. Obviously, the reality is that our children have very busy days filled with learning and social experiences, both positive and negative.

As well as the PE and playtimes, children also remember those “extras” trips, visitors and experiences that enrich the curriculum. To this day, I still have a core memory of riding on the cable car down to Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight with Candice Fong (my Year 6 crush), filling a tube with coloured sand, and then her not wanting me to ride back up with her on the return journey! I was crushed. It was all made better by the midnight feast in our accommodation that night, where I still hear the howls of laughter as we annoyed our teachers until the early hours, messing around in our dorms.

These thoughts have been brought into sharp relief this week as our Year 5 and 6 children have been away on residential. As I listen to my exhausted teachers talk about how proud they are of the children, I have to be honest I sometimes wonder why we do this. And the answer is because these are the memories and experiences that truly shape our children’s lives. They stick with them. Much of learning is like the tide coming in, gradual, building over time, sometimes advancing and sometimes slipping back as children move through the education system. Experiences like residentials become those core moments in life where you learn how to be you, how to face challenges, and those memories stay with you forever.