I start with an apology for the image that accompanies this article. It is not something that anyone should have to witness, really, even if it is perhaps suitable for publication on Friday 13th… Last Tuesday, walking about the corridors of the school while looking like this, many students who encountered me let out an involuntary yell of alarm and affront. I responded with a sympathetic facial expression that in all truth probably worsened the horror.
The explanation: last Tuesday saw the second iteration of House Art at the Senior School, a kaleidoscope of costume and face and body art that celebrates this country’s remarkable creative industries, covered in full elsewhere in this edition of Gateway. Experts from the worlds of fashion and film effects visited the school to share their expertise and judge the astonishing outfits and art on show. My own appearance was the result of an hour with Kate Griffiths, a leading make-up artist for film and theatre, transforming me into… what, none of us quite knew. Something alien for sure.
House Art has quickly become a highlight of the Senior School year, but that is not the only reason I am writing about it today. I am writing about it because I witnessed it, as I have witnessed many other school events, not from the seats in the hall, but from the wings on the stage. I was due on, to showcase Kate’s make-up. Along with dozens of students shuffling backstage, I awaited a cue.
It is one of the greatest privileges of a heads’ life: to applaud student achievement and student endeavour from the wings of the stage, from the door of a classroom, from the sidelines of a pitch, from a tour of the studio. Often I have the chance to see work while it is in progress, or from an oblique angle. One of the most wonderful examples of this is my privilege to attend graduations from Junior and Senior Schools on the stage as students make that momentous crossing in front of an audience filled with pride on their behalf, and able, from my vantage point, to see both: the young person in the spotlight and the families cheering them every step of the way.
It is hard to express the sensation of pride and joy in student achievement from that unusual perspective: not watching the show, nor leading the class, but seeing it in motion. The endeavour, the focus, the sense of purpose, the sheer exuberance and fun. Over the last two weeks I marvelled – and it is the right word – at Senior School and Junior School Carol Services – music to stretch the soul. And I thought of those times I have walked through rehearsals and seen the effort that yields such rewards – just as every parent sees the revision for the test, the preparation for the game, the creation of the portfolio, that lead to the successful result.
The reason we are all part of this community, whether we work or study at school, or as parents support our children to do so, is our belief in the future of each student as an individual: in everything they will become. The joy is in the becoming: those moments in which we see the future being built, through each act of endeavour and creativity.
I am powerfully aware, this year more than ever, that all of us only play a small part in the journey of The Abbey, which has been in progress since at least 1887, and by circuitous routes runs back all the way to Jane Austen’s time in the Abbey Gateway, at which time the school was already known as ancient. It is a journey made up of moments of becoming: of centuries’ worth of innumerable instances in which girls faced and overcame challenges, all of which shaped their lives and the society they in turn helped to influence. If being turned into a sinister golden egg is the price of being part of that journey, it is one that I am, I suppose, willing to pay. But I am still sorry to inflict it on you.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday and all good things for the New Year!
Will le Fleming, Head