Hampton@Home. April 2020

Welcome to the first summer term Hampton@Home e-newsletter. I hope that you and your family managed to find some time for relaxation over the Easter period during these extraordinary times for everyone.

Last Tuesday morning, we experienced a first in Hampton’s long and distinguished 463-year history as we began term with our gates closed. Boys and members of the Common Room instead connected with one another via digital devices for the start of our summer term guided home learning and pastoral care programme. It is to everyone’s tremendous credit that e-Hampton has resumed so purposefully after the Easter break – boys and staff alike have embraced new ways of learning and teaching in typically positive, good-humoured fashion. However, I am sure that all of us appreciate the summer term is not going to happen exactly as we thought it would just a few weeks ago. As I always emphasise to new Hamptonians when they join us – we fundamentally want them to aim for personal best while supporting those around them with kindness. This, and no more, is what is being asked of all of us over the weeks ahead and it should remain our guiding North Star.

We hope that you will find this week’s edition of H@H an informative, entertaining and relaxing read at the end of another challenging week nationally and indeed globally. You will learn more about the remarkable efforts of colleagues in our Design and Engineering department, by whom essential PPE equipment is being manufactured for local healthcare workers; you will hear one of our superb Upper School musicians in action, albeit in an unusual location; and you will be enlightened by another Hamptonian about an admired historical figure. These and many other stories have certainly inspired me this week and they serve to highlight once again the togetherness of our Hampton family and the strength of our ethos.

As it was St George’s Day yesterday and therefore also Shakespeare’s birthday, it feels apposite – at a time when we are all understandably experiencing moments of doubt and concern – to bear in mind some wise words from one his less celebrated plays, Measure for Measure:

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt

These are uncertain times for everyone, as we know. But I ask all Hamptonians to keep any doubts in perspective and to maintain their impressive focus on what we can achieve together between now and the end of our School year, rather than dwelling on things that we cannot temporarily access on the School site. Everyone has done this superbly well during the first week of summer term e-Hampton – thank you and good luck next week!

With kind regards and best wishes