Welcome to the Summer Term! It is good to see you all back in the Cathedral and together in the Nave.

At the end of last term, I spoke about the balance between individuals having to deal with the inevitability of human imperfection whilst being good enough because of the unique combination of talents they bring to the world.

Today, I want to put that individual balance in a wider context and talk about each of you as part of a community.

In some ways, this term, or at least the first part of it, is our most individualistic as it is the term for assessment. I hope one part of your planning for this term will be the blending or rest and consolidation so that you can give a good account of yourself in the written assessments ahead, whether they be public examinations for pupils in U5 and U6 or internal tests for other year-groups.

In doing so, I remind you of the concept of “swanning” that I mentioned at the end of last term, where there is a gap between how individuals present themselves to others and how they feel inside themselves. Please remember to communicate when you are finding something hard, whether that be with teachers over a piece of work or concept that you do not understand, or with a trusted adult or friend if something is upsetting or worrying you.

Yet there is another word which I want you to keep in mind as you head into this term: perspective. Let me expand. By and large, Norvicensians want to do well in their academic work, so I am not worried about pupils setting sights high enough. I am more concerned by the other challenge: that pupils are so keen to do well academically that they adopt behaviours and routines which are unhealthy and not in their long-term interests, i.e. they lose perspective.

It is relatively easy for me to talk about an individual keeping things in perspective and much harder for you to do this in practice. Partly this is to do with the balance I talked about last term: recognizing when to push for more and when to be content with what you have already done. This is a subtle process of self-education and one which extends throughout our lives.

So, let me give other aspects of perspective for the weeks ahead. Your results in assessments inevitably say something about you, but it is a relatively narrow part of you and what happens when you are with us. You will not be defined by these results, whatever they are; even at GCSE and A Level, they may result in changes of pathway if they are better or worse than you were expecting, but they will not stop you being you. Indeed, from my point of view, they are not even the most important metric of our school. There is no doubt that you attend an academic school, but I hope more that you are part of a community which is based on shared beliefs of love, compassion and inclusion. If you give me a choice between academic performance or young people leaving with deep tolerance and a desire to help others, I would go for the latter every time. Tomorrow’s whole school photograph will be a lovely moment as it gives us a brief chance to enjoy the entire community being together, all members of the Lower School included.

And our school community creates this culture through its blend of activities; it is not just about the academic work. Whether you are a musician, a sportswoman, an artist, a dancer or an actor, do keep going with the co-curricular activities which give you pleasure and provide a break from revision. The assessments at the start of term give way to a host of sporting opportunities and the Gather Festival in the last few weeks of term; we want you to be able to make the most of them alongside your academic work, the philosophy being “both/and”, not “either/or”.

And there are communities beyond Norwich School which might help you to retain perspective on your individual goals in the coming weeks. For example, if you have been watching the Wild Isles series on television recently, you will have heard the clear message from David Attenborough that human beings need to think of themselves more as a community with a desire and responsibility to look after the natural world. Another example has come from the war in Ukraine, which has shown the humanitarian importance of an international community with a desire to help the people of a country in difficulty. One might also think of communities based on shared languages or protected characteristics, including faith. A line from our reading this morning gives an idea of how to do this: “in humility value others above yourselves,  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others”. Your connection with such wider issues is not affected by your upcoming examination performance, helping you to keep the latter in perspective.



So, in conclusion: good luck for the term ahead. Do take your revision seriously and be focused on what you can do to improve your performance. However, don’t lose sight of the bigger picture; keep perspective and connect your growing knowledge with who you are as a person and the community you are part of, so that you can use your overall skills to make positive difference in world.