b'WELCOME.FROM THEHEADMASTERPottery is a strange business isnt it? There areIncreasingly, you would like a break, a chance a million perfectly formed china cups and bowlsto catch your breath and reflect, but the wheel lining the shelves at John Lewis, youd thinkis relentless and never stops turning. Rough how hard can it be? With thousands of peopleedges form and each time you smooth out churning out identical crockery every year,one lump, another appears. Points of instability heres a chance to apply your individual stamp,develop, or patches where they are too strong. exercise your latent creativity, give the worldYou want to stop and smooth each one out, but something uniquewhy not give it a go? life doesnt slow down long enough and your childs personality continues to form beneath So you find yourself in a pokey wee studioyour hands.following a wizened fellow in 1970s sandals and sporting a beard like a gorse bush. You glanceHeres what you learn about pottery and scornfully about. Earnest types in homespunparenting. Both are messy, awkward, and can cardigans are hunched intensely over lumpsleave you with mud on your face. They are of misshapen clay, muttering to themselves orunrelenting and totally absorbing. It is impossible wrestling wild-eyed in mud, as they try in vainto make identical pieces. Success always lies to forge something that resembles a man-madein time spent forming a solid base. Strength or object. You cant wait to show them how itsfragility are simply matters of perspective. If you done. mess it up, you cannot really give the end result away to the relatives for Christmas. I guess Twenty minutes later, you are seated in front ofthe best thing is, for as long as your work of your very own potters wheel, looking like theart lingers in your home, it takes pride of place victim of an industrial accident. You are coveredamongst all your treasures, quirks and all.from head to toe in sludge, your fingers areAt times it has felt like I have been seated at bleeding and there is a crater whirling rounda potters wheel for the last two years or so where your bowl once was. Watch how sheswhilst steering the Good Ship HGS through doing it, gorse beard advises, nodding at athe choppy waters of Covid. Thank goodness I slight woman half your size who is effortlesslyhave had the best team of staff and governors coaxing a cup into existence. working alongside me to ensure our community But I am a man: we dont do multi-tasking. If Ithrived and all were very well looked after. As take my eyes off this maniacally spinning claywe start to return to a more normal sense for an instant the whole thing is liable to rocketof being in our everyday life at school (what off the wheel, decapitate the show-off next tothe government calls Living with Covid) it me and replaster the ceiling. If I could just stopis wonderful to welcome back The Bridge the wheel for a moment? I whimper, as themagazine after a short hiatus.demonic slab of mud rears up once more andThe 2022 edition of The Bridge is full of articles, grows limbs of its own. features, reports and stories of celebration, The bearded one chuckles, squeezes mysuccess and achievement. This is what HGS shoulder with wiry hand and says cryptically,is truly about and demonstrates what positive The world turns. Theres no time topower education can have on a community. contemplate that as I throw my body acrossWe are proud to be an institution that has the wheel, sacrificing myself to protect innocentmaintained the best of our traditions and bystanders from the next imminent detonation.heritage whilst embracing modern technology The world turns. It makes you think. and educational thinking. This has never been the case more so than in the last two years and Parenting is just pottery with people. Everyoneespecially as this is our 160th anniversary.else in the world is making their own kids, soI would like to take this opportunity to thank you decide to have a go. Getting started isMs Elaine Brown and Mr Adam Kilcullen, as fairly easy. Your children are born, perfect rawwell as Rebecca England and Gus MacDonald material and you begin to mould them. It allat Ammac Design, for all their expertise and starts off fairly smoothlytheyre just little lumpssupport in bringing this publication to print.rolling round on the carpetbut the task gets trickier as they rise up. They grow and grow andHaec Olim Meminisse soon you are working flat out to keep up with them. Then they start to lurch out of control atIuvabit.times and little eccentricities begin to appear.Dr Simon Bird, Headmaster2'