School That Matters: Mission
We find ourselves at the end of the first half-term of the year and there is a great sense of excitement about the holiday ahead amongst the young people, and perhaps some of the staff. The Friday before a holiday means the treat of musical performances in the canteen at lunch time, a relaxing end to the sometimes frenetic day-to-day of school routine.
This year the last week was marked especially by our Presentation Evening for Year 11. This is the night where pupils who have left recently return to receive their GCSE certificates and the awards that recognise many exceptional and diverse achievements. Last night’s event was a great celebration and very well attended. It felt like the final step in the pupil’s journey through school, a moment where we said a definite farewell as they continue their progress through life.
It is especially fitting that Presentation Evening took place during the week we have devoted to the theme of mission. The words of St. John Henry Newman are often used in assemblies by us to illustrate this: ‘I have my mission. God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.’ For the Year 11 leavers this idea might well feel more urgent than it did when then joined us in Year 7 now that they have chosen a path in college.
As you can see from the content of this week’s newsletter there are many expressions of mission, but all share a common theme. They demand something of us, they ask us to participate in something or respond to a challenge. When the pupils return from the half-term break they will explore their own, personal mission in form time, mapping it out and considering it in relation to our school mission, Love, Learn, Lead.
The word mission means to ‘send out’ or ‘release’, which feels especially appropriate for Year 11 who we are literally being let go from school. The five year groups in the school are challenged to consider who they are, what they offer the world, and what they are being sent out to do as, in the words of Pope Leo, ‘new saints’.
When we return to school on November 2nd, the Feast of All Saints will have been celebrated, and it is that day that gives its name to this term for good reason. All of us are called to be saints, the Pope tells us, to experience new beginnings, to live life in fullness, to live in dignity, honouring the dignity of others and being ‘instruments of peace.’ Whatever we are, whatever we are studying or doing, that is the foundation of our mission.
I wish you an enjoyable, safe and peaceful half-term holiday.
Ben Davis,
Headteacher
