Greetings from Luwero District, Uganda!  Visiting the Kampala Christian Orphanage, home to about 60 girls and boys aged 3-10, has been a wonderful privilege, I've particularly enjoyed encouraging them to read outside of normal school time:

You have my solemn word this picture is not staged!  They asked for the books, a small collection I was able to buy locally, and sat down and started to read - or in the case of the younger children, follow the story through pictures.  No easy feat reading in English when your mother tongue is Ugandan.

Here I am in Uganda!  Such a fantastic place to be.  Arrived on Monday having forgotten how horrible flying is - well, fun the first few times, but the grind of security, long queues, hanging around, being herded from one place to another.  Travel is very definitely a means to an end as far as I'm concerned, fantastic to be in other places but the process leaves a great deal to be desired....

And visiting the Kampala Christian Orphanage!  The children are fantastic, know in general terms the kind of stories which mean that children end up living in orphanages (not necessarily because both birth parents have passed away) but don't know - and think it's best not to know - any details of the individual children who come across as happy, friendly, loving children who love to play and show every sign of enjoying the extra attention I'm able to give them, occasionally getting into scraps with each other.

Desires, I suggest, come in two broad categories.

Dear Dr Welby,

Can I introduce myself as a lifelong member of the Anglican Church, brought up in a clergy home and, with two brief periods away, a communicant member of Anglican churches throughout adult life.

Over the years I've kept an eye on press coverage concerning you and your predecessors.  Have to say, being the Archbishop of Canterbury must be one of the toughest jobs in the world.  Whatever you do, at least 2/3 of your members will disagree, whilst non-members will consider you irrelevant, out of touch, or even evil.

One of my colleagues, of a similar age to me, told me of a recent conversation with one of our pupils, in which he was trying to explain what life was like in the days, well within our memory, before video recorders, let alone DVD, multichannel TV, on demand services such as Netflix and iplayer.  "So what you're saying," the pupil asked, eyes open wide in sheer wonder, "is that, when you were my age, if you wanted to watch a certain programme, you had to be in at a particular time to do so?

Some months ago my head of year told me that a group of boys, including a number from my tutor group and others from my maths group, were organising an event to raise money for charity  Fantastic!  Pupils taking the initiative, looking to help others whilst promoting a sense of community, developing organisational skills and having fun all at the same time.  Which teacher wouldn't want actively to encourage this kind of undertaking?

 

And the event itself?  A football match.

If memory serves correctly, when I was doing mock O levels (now GCSEs) in my 5th year (now year 11) we were only required to turn up when we had an exam to do, otherwise we were on exam leave.  That has now changed - whilst doing mock GCSEs year 11 is required to be in school for the normal school day, if there isn't an exam scheduled in any particular time period, then they go to lessons as on the normal timetable, then to use the lesson time to revise.

So, what that means in practice is that, over the last two weeks, I've seen revision going on in a whole variety of subjects.

A belated happy new year to all my readers, I trust that 2019 will bring peace and happiness in all your endeavours, personal and professional.

I'm aware that I've somewhat neglected my blog recently, there are a number of reasons for this which I'm happy to discuss in private conversation.  But I felt I did want to write a post today.

For the last few months I've been very pleased to be on the rota to lead the prayers at the 10.30am service at St James's Church, Bramley near Basingstoke.