Thought For The Day – Monday 15^th September 2025

We hope you had a very good weekend.

This week is “Week 1” on the timetable.

We are very much looking forward to, and preparing for,  Prospective Parents’ Evening or Open Evening.

This is an excellent opportunity for you to give back to the School.

In so doing, you develop, and showcase, your great attitudes,  leadership and skills.

Our values will be seen in action.  Our values are what we do. They are what guides us.

T.B.S.H.S. needs you on Thursday evening.

As it does each and every day.  In lessons, in extra-curricular activities and in the community, your respectful voice, and unique contribution, matters.

Today is World Democracy Day.  

The word “democracy”  is derived from the Greek words “demos” (meaning people) and “kratos” (meaning power), reflecting the influence, to a certain, but significant,  extent, as in so many fields of life, of Ancient Greece.

In democracy, people have a say and a voice in how their community is run. 

In democracy, people are: cared about and cared for; equal; diverse; included; free;  listened to, looked after; respected; and valued. In democracy, the law is respected.

Abraham Lincoln, who, in his time,  helped abolished slavery, said democracy was:                              “government by the people, of the people, for the people”.

Democracy protects the rights, and safety, of everyone, valuing the vulnerable.

By very definition of the principle, democracy is a combination of rights and responsibilities, of self and service.

Democracy reflects life itself in being: challenging; complicated;  needing checked, nurtured and safeguarded; providing positive hope.

We never forget those who have given their lives for democracy, “sacrificing their today for our tomorrow”.  

In the current global milieu, there are challenges of conflict, environment, poverty and technology.

Today, the United Nations, whose Democracy Fund celebrates its twentieth anniversary today, will host an event called “From Voice to Action”.   Launching the 2025 International Day of Democracy, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, from Portugal, said: “In a time of shrinking civic space and rising disinformation, building trust, dialogue, and shared decision-making is more urgent than ever. Rooted in the principle of “We the Peoples”, this event aims to show democracy as a living force for agency, hope, and cooperation.”

The American ethicist and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once wisely said:  

“People’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but people’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”