Partnership events started in November when we held our annual Inter-School Debate with Oxford Spires Academy at New College. It was a real pleasure to hear the impressive rhetoric, and more importantly witness the shared experience of all the pupils involved. They really rose to the challenge. Chris Gausden and Louise Brown were extremely impressed at the thoughtful arguments put forward to support or counter the motion, ‘This House believes the rise in AI will cause more harm than good’, and the unseen debate, ‘Pineapple has no place on a pizza’. A lot of fun was had by all and the sparky conversation that ensued encapsulated what the whole event was about. 

Isobel Rose has been sharing her musical expertise with St Christopher’s Primary School on a weekly basis this year, coaching a delightful choir who clearly relish her input. It is very rewarding to see this partnership so embedded, following on from the singing workshop St Christopher’s took part in last year along with St Mary’s and St John’s. Tom Neal’s OCCO initiative goes from strength to strength, and we continue to encourage new participants to join from local schools so as continue to enhance the musical life of the school and the wider community. 

For the first time we held a critical thinking workshop for primary school children from four schools based in Oxford and London. This was a joint project between The Centre for Tutorial Teaching, The Children’s Parliament and New College School. Efforts to guide younger pupils on how to critically analyse material that they receive through the media were highlighted by BBC Radio Oxford. We very much hope there will be more opportunities for these types of workshops. It was fantastic to be able to share not only the new auditorium but our catering services too. 

The Year 8 Language Ambassadors did a fantastic job at St Michael’s Primary School, giving a variety of language lessons to Years 3, 4 and 5. Catherine Phillips’s work with both the Junior and Senior Language Ambassadors is invaluable as the pupils on both sides benefit substantially from improved confidence, and a widening of their perspective through this link. 

We continue to stay in touch with the Nalang Model Academy in Nepal and following some re-structuring at the school we very much hope we will be able to build in some online cultural exchanges through presentations and conversation, and hopefully more visits. 

This year has also seen us share our sporting facilities and expertise through some football training and matches with Church Cowley St James C of E School. Craig Bishop and his team are keen to expand on these opportunities in the future. The headteacher of the school also invited us to share in their expertise in street dancing. Something for the future perhaps! 

To finish off the year, in Trinity we enjoyed a visit from some Japanese teachers from Keio Yochisha Elementary School, who were keen to visit our music department. Their visit proved very enlightening and it was a pleasure to share with them all things musical.