Message to Students at the start of a new academic year

Secondly, let’s intentionally and consciously welcome new people. Those of us who have been here a while may have forgotten how hard it is to move countries, homes, schools. Let’s remember – it is very hard. So to those who have just joined – we’re delighted you are here; please let us know how we can make things easier; and let’s all recognise two things:

• If your mother tongue is not English, there will be a big adjustment. But we know people do adjust, and so will you.

• If you are coming from a background and are not used to the high tech, fast-paced environment of how we work – the message is the same. You have a steep learning curve, but it’s one that students climb every year. Ask for help when you need it. And hang in there. It’ll be OK.

For those of you who have been a here a while, welcoming new people needs thought. Many of you will have ready-made social circles, intact from last year. It will be tempting to simply re-establish those groups and in doing so, perhaps to overlook those who might want to join. If we are all honest with ourselves, we all know what it feels like when we are comfortable in a group, and when we do not allow someone to join. We don’t respond to comments from new folk, laugh at their jokes, or make space when they sit with us.  I know it happened here and there last year – probably unintentionally, but it happened, and we have probably all been at the receiving end of this type of thing.  We know it hurts and so this year, let’s go out of our way to get past this. I am asking all of you to help each other, and naming the behaviours helps. So let’s say to each other hey, here’s a place for you, come sit with us when new folk approach. When you hear someone’s comment ignored, ask him to repeat it. When you see someone alone, suggest to your friends lets see if she’s OK. We are a school where we look out for each other; these are ways of making it concrete.

Thirdly, let’s think about how we can work with each other. If you look ahead across the year, and think of how it will be, you can think of it as a kind of maze – things to do, things not to do, possible wrong turns to avoid. If you follow this analogy, then there are some 1000 other mazes in High School; one for each person.  Here we are, in the first frame here, all with our own mazes.  And it may feel like a competition; with us racing against each other.

Competition, Co-operation and Collaboration

But this is a poor way to think about things. After all, if we have 1000 people with similar mazes, why go it alone?   One solution is to co-operate, as in the second frame. That’s an improvement, for sure. But if you notice, in this metaphor, no-one can sees their mazes more clearly. The talking may help, but there is a better option; collaboration. Collaboration is when you work together to do things that would have been impossible alone. That’s the third frame. So here notice that it doesn’t matter which mouse you are; the point is that the team is achieving something that none of them could have achieved individually.  And new or old, they are all contributing to the team. That’s what we want being part of a learning community to be about; using each other, and supporting each other, to collectively exceed what we can manage by ourselves. So the job for each us now is to figure out what this means for us – in our academics, in our arts performances, our sports teams or on our expeditions. What does that look like for you?

So this year, let’s focus on (i) avoiding labels (ii) going out of our way to welcoming new people – students, teachers, parents, support staff (iii) collaborating to do more together than we can alone.  These are things that will make an immediate difference; to others, and to ourselves, to the people that we might become, to the people that we aspire to be.

 Have a wonderful, wonderful year.