Thought For The Day – Thursday 13^th February 2025

We send our very best wishes, and very grateful thanks, to students, and staff, embarking on further educational visits this half term.   Such opportunities provide invaluable memories and moments that will be cherished for life.  Thank you so much to all inspiring, leading and participating.

Each and every day is a positive opportunity.   Whether you are travelling, or staying at home, this half term, we wish you, and your family,  a healthy, reflective, restful, safe and appropriately productive time.  Stay safe in person and on-line.  So often it is the little things that bring most happiness.

As well as resting, there will be a number of students who will be earnestly preparing for summer examinations. The forthcoming March will be another important month in this respect. The season reaches more key moments.

On our journeys, we remember the ultimate test, and adventure, is how we treat others, our environment and ourselves.  We always keep in mind, and act for, those in need. Doing our best is all that matters.  Values are everything.

We look forward to welcoming Year 8 carers, guardians, parents and students to the School Hall tonight for their Consultation Evening.

Last Friday evening, 7^th February 2025, our new School Hall was transformed into a BBC radio studio.  The BBC  were so greatly impressed by our new facilities, which we are so very lucky to experience our new school each day. It was wonderful to host, for the third time in our history,  BBC Radio 4’s “Any Questions?”,  an historic programme first broadcast in 1948, which provided an evening of respectful and current discussion and debate.

We were, and are, so very grateful to brilliant and ground-breaking presenter Alex Forsyth, and all the equally outstanding  BBC presenting, production,  engineering, technical and security teams, especially Louise and Paul .  They were, and are, all truly inspirational in their hard work, judgement, kindness and professionalism.  The “Any Questions?” team make each episode, each venue, and each person, feel special.  They work so diligently and flexibly on every programme, which is broadcast from a different location and venue each fabulous Friday. Teamwork makes the dream work.  The “Any Questions?” team tour the country, bringing the BBC, news and politics to the people, and people to the BBC, news and politics.   “Any Questions?” is always a perfect summary and analysis of current, and timeless,  national and international events. Each edition broadcasts to around 1.5 million listeners to educate, inform and entertain.  We do not take hosting “Any Questions?” for granted and greatly appreciated all the programme did for us. “Any Answers?”, broadcast after the Saturday repeat of “Any Questions?” on BBC Radio 4, was, and always is, an equally democratic, educational, engaging, enriching and good-humoured listen. We are always mindful of all who have challenges in regard of listening, as in other areas.

At “Any Questions?”, we were and are also very grateful to the distinguished panel, who offered engaging and thoughtful answers to excellent questions posed (which, like in an examination,  they did not know about beforehand):  Lord Frost, former Minister of State at the Cabinet Office and Chief Negotiator for Exiting the European Union;  global citizen Bronwen Maddox, of the international affairs organisation “Chatham House”; U.K. Treasury minister from the Government of the United Kingdom, James Murray M.P.; and author, broadcaster and historian Steve Richards.

Without a wonderful audience, of over 300 people, and their questions,  there would have been no “Any Questions?” at TBSHS. People greatly supported the event in inclement weather.  The BBC said they had never received so many audience questions.   This large and significant gathering included: community champions and representatives; the political parties; former students; local school students; current and former students, of all ages; carers, parents, guardians and school teachers and staff.  The event was very widely advertised. Thank you to “Bishop’s Stortford Independent”, a vital voice of, and in, the community, for their great help with this.

Life is always a humble, team game.  The event most definitely  could not have happened without very many staff and student leaders, including: Mr. Conquest, Head of Politics,  and the Politics students, one of which was chosen to ask their superb question live  (thank you to Mr. Conquest for leading this vital life and subject area); the PTFA;  the senior management, caretaking, catering, cleaning, finance, office and technical teams at TBSHS; car parkers (working in the rain); Mr. and Mrs. Jonas; the student pianist;  Interact students; inspirational staff and student volunteers. All gave so generously of their expertise, time and wisdom and greatly assisted with such a memorable and inspirational evening.

Such appropriate, respectful and thoughtful discussion and debate is at the very heart of our democracy and law.  This is a subject explored on in the very interesting recent Channel 4 drama documentary film “Brian and Maggie”, pictured in the first picture below.  This dramatisation tells the story of a famous a critical 1989 political interview of, and the professional and respectful relationship between, a former Labour Member of Parliament, Brian Walden, who became a political historian, interviewer and journalist, who passed away in 2019,  and former Conservative Prime Minister and Member of Parliament, Baroness Margaret Thatcher, who passed away in 2013.  Brian Walden’s detailed and rigorous political interviews, lasting, like “Any Questions?” nearly an hour, which also brought the news and politics to people and people to the news and politics,  were broadcast on Sunday lunchtimes.  In the late 1990s, and early 2000s, just as we have invited other broadcasters, politicians and Prime Ministers of different political parties, we invited both “Brian and Maggie” to TBSHS, on separate occasions, receiving apologetic, considerate, kind and respectful responses, extracts of which are below.