Final thoughts
As my time at Brentwood comes to a close, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the pupils, parents, colleagues and governors who have made my time here such a positive, enjoyable and rewarding experience. Any perceived successes along the way are down to my extraordinary colleagues and their ability to demonstrate hard work, patience and above all else, kindness. All of these attributes make them a very special group of people.
In the past five years, I have also learned a huge amount from working with Mr Bond, alongside the Central and Prep SLT groups. I thank them whole-heartedly, and I take all the knowledge I have gleaned from Brentwood onto the next stage of my career in consultancy, mentoring, coaching and lecturing for the University of Buckingham.
The Prep School is in excellent shape, and certainly well placed to meet the many challenges that all schools in our sector will face in the next few years. This is no coincidence, as we have enjoyed a period of significant growth to the school roll, the development of our facilities and a cultural toolkit which will continue to pay dividends. The new PYP curriculum will also bring lots of opportunity for Prep learners to be even more energised, challenged and enthused during their time at school, and I look forward to seeing (from a distance) how this important strategic change plays out in the years to come.
The transition between Alice Goodfellow and myself has been extremely thorough and given that Mrs Goodfellow is an internal candidate, she will start her tenure as Head of Prep with a great deal of institutional knowledge and internal experience that no external candidate could possibly match. Importantly, Mrs Goodfellow is already well known to the Prep staff, and she is a genuinely respected figure within our community.
Finally, I would also like to say a thank you on behalf of my incredibly supportive wife, Katherine, and our three daughters who spent a combined total of 31 years as pupils at Brentwood. They are successful young adults with quite outstanding academic results, and the school has played a major part in this. Most importantly, they are good people who fully understand the importance of what it means to demonstrate Virtue, Learning and Manners in the wider context of adulthood.
Thank you, Brentwood.
Jason Whiskerd
