Good Schools Guide
Friday 26th June 2026
Welcome to the Barrow Hills Bulletin, your weekly newsletter with a snapshot of life at School.
Message From the Head
Dear Parents,
Hot stuff this week, with highlights including Year 2 and Year 3 visiting a fruit farm, and a fantastic Pre-Prep Summer Celebration and a reflective assembly from Year 6 today.
Year 8 have been hard at work designing and constructing functional Remotely Operated Vehicles. This project has provided an excellent practical application of STEM learning, challenging the children to master wire soldering, calculate buoyancy, and build structural frames from scratch. These submarines and other underwater vehicles will be launched and put through their paces in the swimming pool next week.
Our children have also been making great strides, with both LAMDA examinations and ballet examinations taking place. I am sure there will be much success to celebrate. In the most recent round of LAMDA exams all children gained distinctions, with 7 children scoring over 90% and Delilah smashing it at 94%.
We moved Sports Day into the reserve slot next Wednesday 1st July and look forward to that, along with a series of other events culminating in Prize Giving on Friday.
Looking ahead to the next academic year, we are fortunate once again to have a very stable and loyal staff body powering our engines. There are, however, a few thanks to give.
Mr O’Kelly, our Year 4 teacher, will be leaving after six years of service to complete a Master’s degree. We are delighted to welcome Ms Sasha Wigley, a highly experienced teacher, to join our team. Mr Pretorius, Head of Maths, is also moving on after three years at the school, returning to South Africa with his family. Mrs Burge, an experienced Head of Maths, has been appointed to succeed him.
Mrs Platt, one of our Teaching Assistants, is retiring after 25 years of dedicated service to the school. She will be replaced by Mrs Knight, an experienced Teaching Assistant and qualified teacher. We also bid farewell to Karen Herrington from the Accounts Department, who is retiring after 21 years of service.
We are immensely grateful for the contribution each of these colleagues has made and for the positive impact they have had on our pupils and the wider school community. We wish them every happiness and success in the future.
This will be the final newsletter of the academic year. We will, however, be sending out some celebratory film footage next week to capture the many special moments and achievements of the year. Thank you for your support.
Mr Towers, Head
We’re thrilled to invite little ones into our Nursery and Forest School for a our weekly toddler class – Tree Tots @ Barrow Hills!