by Vanessa McKinley, Director of External Relations, Francis Holland Schools Trust
One of the biggest challenges we face as central London schools is how to manage our busy stream of events. Besides the usual schedule of drama, concerts, sports fixtures and charity events ? we host a constant cycle of visiting speakers to our Women of Influence programme, sixth form speaker programme, creative enterprise programme and pastoral talks across our senior and junior schools ? it?s literally never ending! Squeezing events into our packed calendar and school buildings often requires mental gymnastics for the Senior Leadership teams and especially our facilities team! So it was a strange experience for us to find ourselves having to cancel events, one by one, and see our calendar gradually emptying as the reality of the long-term lockdown and gravity of the pandemic became apparent. It was upsetting for us all to see our schools fall silent and the usual buzz of school life evaporate. Most of our key events were either postponed or cancelled for this year and our open events programme – the hugely popular open mornings and our annual gathering of 600 people for open evenings – seem, for now at least, a thing of the past.
However, the school year is a continuous cycle and our admissions programme for 4+, 11+ and 16+ across our schools must continue – so in the absence of on-site school tours for prospective parents and pupils, we set ourselves the challenge of rec...