When was the last time you experienced silence? Have a good old think. No, not then. Think a bit more. No, that doesn’t really count either. I mean proper silence… The sort of silence that actually makes you stop in your tracks because it has crept up on you, in a manoeuvre of aural stealth, and then ‘bang!’… or rather, ‘ !’… it strikes you between the ears. And you stop. And you listen intently to the chance to hear – well – nothing.
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Take a look through many a prep school’s website or marketing literature and you are likely to find use of the word ‘confidence’ and the aim to develop it within pupils. At Pilgrims’ our particular take is ‘confidence with humility’. Developing the right sort of confidence is hugely important, a valid ambition and ultimately central in children reaching their full potential. Now, ‘confidence’ is a topic I have written on before in the newsletter. Previously, it was in the context of performing an instrumental solo in a ‘low-risk’, small-environment concert, making some errors, but picking oneself up, dusting oneself off, and carrying on.
There was a fantastic hour last Saturday morning that chimed with so many things that I have become a huge advocate of in the last decade or so of my career. In the most recent of our Wellbeing Matters sessions, Mark Herbert (an ex independent school teacher, pastor, and now co-founder of ‘Salt and Light’ leadership coaching) came to talk to parents about developing leadership in our pupils.
In this day and age – with the posturing, virtue signalling and the easy politicising of public discourse on mass messaging and communication platforms – this question is perhaps being asked, if only implicitly, more than ever before. However, I would argue that the degree to which it is truly connected with and given proper thought is likely to be far less than ever before. In some part, this is because opportunities to be undistracted enough to search one’s mind, memory and morals are at risk of dwindling entirely.
At a school with as much music and sport as Pilgrims’, this does not come as a surprise. It is a familiar axiom. But what can be salutary is to remember in quite how many regards this is true. It is not just the realisation of the boy towards the top end of the school who starts to feel the burgeoning fruits of all that time spent on their instrument, refining their passing technique or, indeed, nuancing their brush work in art. Both physically and neurologically, repeated activity builds familiarity, strength and accuracy of action. Muscles strengthen, virtuous cycles build and health (in whatever holistic sense the word can be taken) improves.
Full disclosure: this piece involves me once again extolling the virtues of Pilgrims’ location and community. I’m sorry. Asking me not to extol the benefits of these cornerstones of my childhood is like asking Eric Cantona to stop peddling pop-philosophy, B.A. Baracus to embrace modern concepts of masculinity, or Mr Toad to tear his eyes and ego away from that bright new shining motor car. It’s just not going to happen.)
'What could be a suitable collective noun for a group of 8- to 9-year-old girls participating in a ten pin bowling birthday party?...’ (Suggestions on the back of a postcard, folks.) This was an idle, light-hearted musing I found myself having during half term, as my youngest managed to haul herself out of a period of tonsillitis for long enough to enjoy her own party. The flashing lights. The loud music. The arcade machines. The things we parents endure for our little ones!
I’m always heartened by the number of parents I fall into conversation with who make mention of discussing the focus of my newsletter piece over the meal table with their sons each week. Building some family dialogue around that which we have covered in assemblies is an excellent way for the boys to gradually grow a sense of their own opinion in the context of the values networks they are growing up in. However, this week’s focus (I fear) may not be without its controversy. This is perhaps surprising given that it was Love…
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Set assemblies started this week off: a lovely chance for the boys to feel that tight-knit identity and pride in being a Wren, Roman, Saxon, Monk or Norman. A cause of particular excitement was the return of the much-loved Set Quiz, which will have regular rounds this term leading, of course, to the all-important Final. Many thanks indeed to Mr Duncan for relaunching the quiz: it is, I suspect, something he’s rather enjoying… giving a chance to indulge his inner Paxman!
A very, very Happy New Year to one and all! I hope that the Christmas holidays brought a chance for some special time with those you love.
Since leaving The Oval Office, Barack Obama has observed that as POTUS he had all the technical expertise he could have wished for at his disposal and he could have hired anybody at all to work for him; but that, for all this, most of the problems that crossed his desk could not be solved by technical solutions and most had no clear solution at all
