Welcome from the Head

With much relief, the Summer and Autumn terms allowed us to restore not all, but many of the enjoyable events that bring fun to the calendar of any school. One such was the OW Sports Festival in September, where I was delighted to share in advance celebrations for the 70th birthday of our ‘Wulfrunian’ cover star, the indefatigable and unique John Johnson. This edition’s fascinating profile of JJ captures his own reflections and those of others across his 47 years’ service to WGS in a variety of roles that continues to this day.

From my perspective, JJ has already been a big part of my experience of the School since I joined as Head in September 2020, going out of his way to encourage me in that subtle, reassuring and steadying way in which I know he has boosted so many students, colleagues and friends over his professional life. As the custodian of many important WGS traditions, he has been on every one of the 23 Coast-toCoast challenges, for instance. Since C2C happened twice in the 2020-21 academic year (albeit once in Cannock Chase under restrictions), for me that meant two enjoyable periods of time up hill and down dale with JJ, not to mention the obligatory Robin Hood’s Bay breakfast followed, after a sleep, by the celebratory dinner in Doncaster. JJ has maintained the Chris Walker memorial mile over nearly 40 years: it was incredibly moving to welcome Chris’s brother Alan (OW 1981) to the 2021 event and hear his praise for how JJ has kept Chris’s memory and example alive for generations of Wulfrunians since.

As one of the Heads of House when the system was discontinued in the 1990s, JJ has been around long enough to see the wheel turn and Houses return to the Senior School in the form of Jenyns, Moreton, Nechells and Offley. As you can see in the later pages of the magazine, the system has been redesigned and relaunched for September 2021 as our pastoral organising principle to enhance continuity of care and to allow for more fun competition across a range of endeavours from sport, tug-of-war, photography, baking and quizzing to name just a few. Our other significant innovation for September 2021 has been the incredibly successful introduction of Infant classes at Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, making WGS available to children of all school ages for the first time in our 510-year history.

Extra-curricular activities, such an important part of WGS life, have been firmly restored for all ages and interests. As ‘Wulfrunian’ goes to press, we are looking forward to the first school play in two years, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. We are also delighted to be getting a whole lot more alumni events back in the diary, whether at School, at the House of Lords for our London Reunion or even across the Atlantic as we plan to meet OWs on the West and East Coasts of the USA in late October. I hope that as many readers of ‘Wulfrunian’ as possible will be in a position to attend an event. It will be a great pleasure to meet you, if you can.

Also in this edition, we pay tribute to Carrie Bennett who will be known to many Old Wulfrunians as the School’s Director of Marketing & Communications since 2014. Very sadly, Carrie received an extremely challenging cancer diagnosis in Autumn 2020 and has recently elected to step down from her post to concentrate on her recovery. She served the School not only with exceptional professionalism and skill but also great love and kindness. I know I speak for our whole community when I wish her the very best for her continued return to full health.