How inspiring to come out at the start of term and be greeted by thick powdery snowflakes twisting in the light from the streetlamps. The lack of sound that snowflakes make is part of their magic for me and I felt it was almost a personal greeting, a welcome to the New Year to us all.
I discovered the magic of podcasts over the holiday and liked the idea of ‘intentions’ rather than ‘resolutions’ in the High Performance Podcast. There is always a sense of success or failure about resolutions, about personal fault if you don’t manage to make it, whereas the idea of intentions is, in my view, entirely positive. In my first assembly of this term I shared these messages with your daughters. I talked of the importance of just getting started, that acting is the most important thing rather than thinking about acting and I used the example of those interdental brushes – that if you want lovely teeth just getting started with using them gets you on the way.
The other idea I want to incorporate this year is a ‘monthly adventure’. Something that you add to your schedule which is a little bit of a challenge for you which just stretches you a little. The word ‘adventure’ conjures up exciting ideas for me such as canoeing down the Amazon or climbing the Shard. Although I know I won’t be getting up to quite such extraordinary feats, there is excitement for me in planning and executing an adventure whether it be intellectual or physical.
That is the case for us as a school as well. Whatever happens around us we are keenly focussed on the reasons that we are all here – the education and character development of the students we are lucky enough to educate. That partnership with you is pivotal to that and, as I wrote last term, we launch our parent portal this week. Please log in and let us know how it is working for you as we really want it to be a helpful conduit between us. You will be able to check your daughter’s attendance, her latest praise achievements as well as it providing storage to all those emails that we send. Our Place to Shine program continues and I’m sure you will enjoy reading about your daughter’s achievements in and out of school as she sees them.
Finally, I wish you all a productive and enjoyable New Year. Whatever you intend this year I wish you well.
Ad Lucem,
Mrs Gardiner Legge