I thought it was only right for me to speak today about the extraordinary example of Rob Burrow, the Leeds Rhinos, England and Great Britain rugby league international who died last week aged 41.  As many of you will know, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2019 and whilst he was already an […]

I would like to start by congratulating all those in Year 9 who took part in the Year 9 play last week, a process of many weeks, culminating in two excellent performances here in Great Hall on Wednesday and Thursday evening.   Mrs Pulman-Jones had written a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ famous novel Great Expectations, […]

The theory that artificial intelligence (AI) will one day surpass humans has been spoken of for years, and of course recently featured as a motion in our own Debating competition. But with the release of chatbots like ChatGPT, some think this idea is closer to becoming reality than ever. Artificial intelligence, the field of computer […]

(This assembly is an abridged version of an episode from a podcast by the brilliant broadcaster and economist, Tim Harford, well known to listeners on Radio 4 for his regular programme, “More or Less”.  I highly recommend to all pupils – and indeed staff – his excellent podcast, “Cautionary Tales”, which is where I came […]

You may remember that some months ago, just before my sabbatical, I was talking about Mount Stupid, and how not to get stuck there.  I introduced you to the concept of Mount Stupid – the place where people’s confidence in their own abilities and expertise significantly exceeds their actual expertise. So they think they’re good […]

One of my favourite TV programmes ever was The Office – the UK version – co-written and starring Ricky Gervais as the odious David Brent, and I found out recently that it was Ricky Gervais who is credited with one of my favourite aphorisms, which goes as follows: “When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It’s only […]