I visited Highgate School summer school this morning. Highgate, which is one of the foremost independent schools in the country, for a long time was relatively segregated from the rest of the community of schools in Haringey. With the arrival of a new head a little while back, Adam Pettitt, that changed hugely. Combining its community responsibility and its academic status – Highgate now runs a summer school for children from other schools in Haringey and Camden from years 10 and 12 – to raise horizons, benefit from top academic input, learn life skills like negotiation, team-working and so on.

So I gave a brief talk to the Year 12 students and Year 10 students – and watched a bit of an English tutorial and a workshop on enterprise. I asked some of the English students how it compared to their school. Interestingly, two of the girls from Haringey 6th form college, said it was fantastic to be able to learn in a learning environment where they didn’t get put down for being interested in studying. Food for thought I thought!

Anyway – delighted to see the continuation of this excellent project- exemplar in  how the wider school community can benefit from what Highgate has to offer.