Interesting photogragh

You need quite a clever camera and a lot of staging, plus some organisational genius, to get a good photograph of 1800 people.

As a practice run for a commemorative photograph to be taken in 2015 to celebrate the School's 500th birthday, we spent most of a morning this week arranging around 200 junior school pupils, 1300 senior school pupils, their teachers and the extensive non-teaching support staff into position for such a snap.  Add to the physical moving around the business of issuing, then collecting in order, a bar code for each person, and you have scope for lots of innocent fun.  It will be interesting to see whether the labelling of the finished article represents reality.

Good to belong to an institution where such an exercise is well-run and borne by all with good humour - some lads spent the best part of two hours waiting on the staging.  The first people allowed off were the kitchen staff, rushing to get lunch ready for the hordes.  A great school marches on its stomach, it seems.

A busy day of visitors

Last Friday was one of those particularly exciting MGS days, when the range of visitors talking to different groups of boys adds that something extra to what would normally be going on in the classrooms.

First arrival was Andrew Bingham, Conservative MP for the High Peak, who came to visit MGS for the first time and met some of his young constituents and, pursuing his interest in SMEs, two Lower Sixth Young Enterprise businesses, one of which has already managed to place its giftware and wrapping paper in Rymans.  A lively speaker, he didn't want to condemn Stephen Hester's RBS bonus but did want to promote the Glossop by-pass.

Not content with a visit from a member of the lower house, we then welcomed Lord Lamont, who spoke to Sixth Form Politics and Economics students about his life in politics.  As Chancellor in the Major government, he had insights to offer about the current difficulties in the EU and Eurozone. As he did in government, Lord Lamont produced a calm, even bland performance and came closest to passion in repeating his plea that members of his audience should consider politics as a worthy calling and at the very least engage with the democratic process throughout their lives.

At lunchtime Marc Shirman, at MGS in the 1990s, came in to talk to older pupils interested in careers in finance.  Marc, well remembered as a school water-polo player, studied Finance and Accounting at Leeds Met, and is now Head of Structured Finance for RBS's North of England Commercial Banking operation based in Manchester.

Scarcely was Marc out of the theatre (now a great venue for presentations to audiences of up to 200) than Martin Sixsmith arrived to give the inaugural Ian Leverton lecture.  Ian was an inspirational teacher (and later Head of Department) of German and Russian from the mid-60s until his untimely retirement on ill-health grounds and early death in 2009.  Martin was one of a clutch of Old Mancs who shared Ian's love of languages, journalism and Liverpool Football Club and has based his professional life, particularly his time with the BBC, around modern foreign languages and the investigation of other cultures.  His lecture explored themes of language and culture with particular reference to Russia and the former Soviet Union.  With a light touch he displayed his enthusiasm and scholarship, and provided his audience with an inspiring experience.

While sixth formers were listening to Martin, Lower School boys were meeting author, animator and illustrator Curtis Jobling, designer of the BAFTA-winning series Bob the Builder.

Just another MGS day, then - and doubtless the odd Maths and French lesson was taught as well.