Rector’s eNews 30: 24 September 2025

Over the past week, our boys and staff have largely been in the great outdoors, whilst the A Block have finished their trial examinations and the B Block have engaged in their Leadership Programme, as well as in a work-shadowing experience. As you are most probably aware, the C Block have been undertaking the Journey and growing to feel the rhythms of the transition from day to night and night to day as they set up and take down their tents in the evenings and in the mornings. The D Block are in Pondoland for their four-day experience, growing to understand a local community in a remote part of the country. And the E Block are camping relatively close by in our Reserve and preparing for their hike.

The result of this is that the conventional activities which usually appear in the eNews in abundance are somewhat in abeyance. Nevertheless, it has been another term of exceptional endeavour and achievement in which many boys have been, once again, up early to exercise often in pre-season training, then proceeding to lessons, to their in-season sporting commitments, cultural activities and to a solid couple of hours of prep.

Part of the Michaelhouse way is to encourage our boys to be multi-faceted, to engage in a variety of activities and to promote the idea of a holistic education. What has worried me recently is that often our competitors in sporting activities, most often in the large boys’ schools, have a focus on just a couple of sports and do not have any emphasis on the development of an all-rounder. Their boys often have a pre-season and then a season in one particular sport and often there is a very limited emphasis on any cultural activities. Because our boys want to be competitive and to take part in a range of activities, this often means that the pre-season training, in which there are sometimes provincial trials and matches, takes place at the same time as the season in which the boys should be engaged. This diminishes their capacity to be true all-rounders since they simply do not have the time. There is no easy answer to the general pattern of seasons encroaching on each other and to the multiplicity of “top ten” tournaments in which our school is invited to engage during the term-time (as opposed to the holidays) and it may be that we will need to be more selective in due course in our attendance at some tournaments/festivals in order to maintain a keen academic priority and to allow for a more holistic education. Some consideration will need to be given to this over the next year.

In the meantime, your sons will shortly be on their way to you at home and I wish you a wonderful two weeks re-connecting with them and hearing many stories about the past term – and especially their outdoor education experiences.

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