Thought For The Day – Wednesday 18^th December 2024

“It is a great honour to receive this award. Wigan have a history in this trophy, and success, which Martin (Offiah, the sportsperson who gave the award) has been a part of.  The club is in good shape at the moment. We are very aligned, very connected.  It starts at the top with Chris, the chief executive officer, and we have great ambition, we want  success, but first and foremost we look after one another.  We try and represent the town as best we can.  In our sport, that’s our strength, how we can help our supporters and communities, rather than just what we can take from them.  It is a great honour. It is a great privilege to work with these guys and the club.” (Matt Peet, coach of Wigan Warriors men’s rugby league team, receiving the “Team of the Year” award, on behalf of the team,  at BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards last evening).

A sign of a good community is how it respects those who have come before.

Respice. Aspice, Prospice.

Tonight, at Awards’ Evening, we welcome back former students, particularly last year’s Year 13.

The authentic, natural and unstaged picture above was of the students in their final Year 11 assembly. In the sixth form, we welcomed new students, who we are always grateful for.

No doubt, returning students tonight will be very interested to see our new school.  It will also be very strange for them.  As it has been for you.  What just happened?  For many, change takes time to adapt to.  We have a former staff returning tonight who will be equally intrigued.

Wherever we are, it will always be their school, your school, the staff’s school, the parents’ and carers’ school.

Ethos and values both transcend space and time. They can be and are immanent everywhere.

It was a great pleasure to see, by chance, three former students of last year’s Year 13 in Bishop’s Stortford. They were:  Freddie, Dan and Zak.

These three students, like so many before them,  were brilliant to talk with, they shared their new career in Finance and gave views about Tottenham Hotspur.  They showed leadership and respect.  As they always did.  They talked of the “Black and Gold”.  No one lived that more then, and no doubt now, more than these three former students.

At school, there is often a focus on the present, on the immediate.   But, in all the positives and massive challenges, we never, ever forget the future,  always thinking long term.  Things do take time. Things in fact take a lifetime. And more.  Learning, living and loving is lifelong, and beyond.

And, equally we never, ever forget the past and our roots.

For, in the final analysis, what ultimately matters is the kind of person we are and try to be.