School's out for summer at Highfield and Brookham Schools

The final bell has sounded on another year at Highfield and Brookham Schools – and what a year it has been.

With everything coloured by the global Covid pandemic, it’s been a year of disruption, uncertainty, closures and cancellations. It’s been a year of face masks, hand sanitisers, classroom bubbles, self-isolating and home-testing kits.

But as they say, the show must go on and, boy, did the show go in stoic, determined and incredibly effective style, with pupils and staff alike soldiering on and doing what they do best – working diligently to gain and provide a first-class education with opportunities aplenty.

And such has been the impressive ability of the Highfield and Brookham children to adapt that, obvious visual Covid precautions aside, it’s almost as if coronavirus had left our quaint little corner of Liphook alone while running amok all points north, south, east and west elsewhere.

The pre-prep and prep schools pride themselves on teaching life skills and good values to the children, with resilience being one of them, and that resilience has been alive and well throughout these difficult times to engender some kind of normality throughout school life.

And that sense of normality, which has slowly been really gathering momentum since the children returned from their enforced absence in March, as decreed by the government, has taken many forms, not least the return of competitive sports matches and the return of parents to watch said matches.

Highfield Headmaster Phillip Evitt said: “It really has been an incredibly eventful year with the odds stacked against everyone in the education sector, but we’ve followed the rules, we’ve taken every possible precaution and done everything in our power to keep everyone safe, and I couldn’t be more proud of everyone associated with Highfield and Brookham Schools the way that they have shone through the adversity to make school life as normal as possible.”

From that first seed of a move toward normality, with the return of sports spectators, has grown a mighty oak in terms of the schools’ events calendar in double-quick time, with Brookham hosting two brilliant sports days – one for years one to three, and a second for the youngsters in Nursery and Reception – while Highfield has been blessed also with a double dose of sporting excellence (with several school records broken), a wealth of fun and character-building school trips to the Isle of Wight and Littlehampton, and outstanding dramatic performances from Year 4 and the leavers from Year 8.

Add a Year 6 Campout, a Year 8 party on the golf course and the annual Prize Giving in the giant marquee to the mix and it was the perfect antidote to a restrictive and somewhat unsettling start to the school year. The Highfield and Brookham pupils have finished the year with a flourish, the schools have finished with a flourish.

Mr Evitt added: “The last few weeks, in particular, have been incredibly busy and incredibly rewarding. The children have risen to the challenge magnificently, be it on the sports field, in the classroom or on the stage, and they thoroughly deserve their long summer break.

“We will, of course, miss our departing Year 8 pupils who have made a huge contribution to school life in so many ways, and we wish them well in their onward educational journey and beyond, but we are excited about welcoming the children back in September and the limitless possibilities that brings.”