“Champions keep playing until they get it right.”
– Billie Jean King
Cluedo or Clue, as I have learned it is called in the US, is a well-established board game devised by Waddington’s games designer Anthony E. Pratt in 1943. It has spawned a musical, movie and tv series. It’s probably also been responsible for a fair share of family arguments. The game is set in a country house where a murder has taken place. Various suspects are investigated to see if they committed the murder with one of a variety of objects and the players are challenged to decide in which room the murder was committed. All very Agatha Christie.
This week we have been treated to our own version of the board game courtesy of our Senior School Librarian Mrs. Wherli and some sporting members of staff. As a celebration of Children’s Book Week it has been a good deal of fun. We will find out who won next week.
Cluedo asks us a series of questions about who, what and where? As such it has a strange parallel with the questions that we ask of pupils and the questions that our young people ask of themselves. They aren’t questions about murder (happily) but more they are about what happens next. Year 9 pupils have chosen GCSE options, Year 11 are looking at what their post 16 education will look like, and Year 13s are moving ever closer to the time when they will leave the school. Year 6 are considering the move to Senior School, and everyone has started to think about next year. As we come to the end of a very busy term, it is a good idea to consider the future in the light of all that has been achieved. The questions of who am I, what do I want to achieve and where will I do it are coming to the fore.
This term we have run a series of events to promote thinking about the future. In order to ensure that these future plans become a reality, we’ve pushed academic achievement and encouraged pupils to go beyond the curriculum. We have encouraged our young people to develop the skills and values that will help them go on to be valued and valuable members of their communities through sport, music and drama. Some have faced obstacles and others have found the game an easy one to play. It is the combination of academic progress alongside the development of character that leads to the flourishing that is the aim of this particular game.
Nicholas Hammond
Headmaster
