Your Learning Never Has to Stop

This often used phrase has certainly been true for me this year.

Not only have I experienced my first year as Deputy-Head of the Primary School, which has been an extremely varied, exciting, challenging and rich experience, but I have also been working through the Senior Leadership Programme (SLP); a course for senior school leaders provided by Nord Anglia Education (NAE).

NAE and Regents support and encourage continued professional development. This year alone I have travelled to Dubai for a three day course as well as flying back to England to spend a week at Warwick University where I was exposed to many new, cutting edge educational ideas and initiatives.

The core aim of NAE is to provide all pupils who attend their schools with a premium education; one that encourages us all to be ambitious, in whatever we attempt. Therefore, as senior management, we encourage all our classroom teachers to become involved in their own professional development, whether this is attending courses, pursuing personal studies or gaining new experiences in the classroom.

One of the most inspirational speakers I have ever heard addressed us at the Warwick conference. His name was Miles Hilton Barber and he has quite literally achieved the impossible. Amongst numerous super-human feats he has: hauled a sledge for 250 miles across Antarctica; been the first pilot to undertake a 55-day, 21,000 kilometre micro light flight from London to Sydney; completed "The Toughest Foot-race on Earth" - 150 miles across the Sahara Desert; and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt. Blanc- Africa's and Europe's highest mountains respectively. These would all be extreme accomplishments in themselves, for anyone, but Miles is totally blind.

I know that all our teachers at Regents school would be the first to say that life is a journey not a destination; that each one of us has inner depths and abilities which are just waiting to be recognised; and that indeed, learning never stops.

Mr James Baker - Deputy Head of Primary