Dear Parents

I hope that this first Publiciser of the new school year finds you well and your children settled back into their new school routines.

This year, of course, these new routines carry the feeling of novelty for us all as we take our first steps back towards normality. Staff and children are encountering experiences which may be slightly hazy memories and which we find hard to believe that some children have never done before. 

This is nowhere more obvious than in chapel or assemblies at present – albeit, we still can’t have our full gatherings and must meet in smaller groups. Nonetheless, children in the Pre Prep are starting to understand that there is a wider group of children around them that goes beyond the confines of their classroom and year group. It is lovely to see them enjoying a wider community that we had previously denied them.

While we were managing, small live meetings last term, the re-introduction of singing has made a huge difference to the atmosphere of these communal gatherings. Our first hymn singing this term marked the first time in over 530 days that anyone had sung in the chapel. Other than during the evacuation during World War II, I cannot believe that there has been a similar silence since the chapel was first built. 

As we probably all know, the experience of communal singing is central to school life. Indeed, when I visit any other school, the quality and vibrancy of what happens when a school comes together to sing tells me a lot about what else is happening in the School. More important than this, however, the joy of singing and of joining in with others is something that we are all feeling at the moment. So many people have observed that they didn’t realise how much they had missed it until they were allowed to sing at school again.

There are only two children in the School with any experience of the Chapel Choir but choirs and hymn practices are now becoming a regular part of our life again and, as I type, I can hear a group warming up in chapel down the corridor – hurrah!

This return to chapel and to singing couldn’t be better timed as we celebrate this year the hundredth anniversary of our chapel. While records on this are a little unclear, we believe that the building created to mark the loss of 126 old boys in the Great War was first used in 1921. As we move towards the Remembrance Service on Friday 12^th November, we plan to mark these hundred years at and around this service. Further details of this will follow, but we are delighted that General Alastair Bruce, the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, has agreed to preach at this year's Service.

Good luck to everyone for a successful term and what should be an exciting school year.

As always, you can keep up to date with things here at Cargilfield by following our various social media channels which are constantly updated; the links to these are at the bottom of this newsletter. Our news page on the website is updated daily and can be accessed here.

Rob Taylor