“Why is your hair yellow?”

“Are you related to Isaac Newton?

“Do you live in there?” (Whilst pointing at the stained glass doors, which leads to a cupboard area.)

There are many reasons adults choose to work in schools. Some are drawn by a love of their subject, others by the desire to help young people grow in confidence and character. But one of the greatest privileges of school life is that no two days are ever quite the same, largely because children see the world in ways adults often forget to.

Girls here have the confidence to ask questions with complete honesty, curiosity and fearlessness. They are capable of moving from the deeply philosophical to the gloriously absurd in the space of a single conversation.

One moment, I’ve been asked:
“What happens to us when we die?”
Before another child asked:
“Can we play a trick on our teachers?”

Both, in their own way, reveal something important about childhood: its openness, its imagination and its refusal to separate wonder from everyday life.

Recently, as part of her ‘Love of Learning’ project, Jessie Harding in Lower 1 asked,
“If we can find dinosaur fossils that show they lived millions of years ago, why do some Christians say the world started differently than what scientists say?”.

It was not asked to provoke debate or score points. It was a genuine attempt to understand the world more clearly. Children are often far less interested in certainty than adults are; they are comfortable sitting in questions. They remind us that education is not simply about supplying answers, but about nurturing thoughtful curiosity.

In Lower 3, Aashvi Shyam created an exhibition project that explored the question:
“AI: Friend or Foe?” and when visiting proceeded to ask me “What is the future of education?”

What struck me was not just the sophistication of the first question, but the optimism behind it. Young people are already thinking carefully about the kind of future they wish to inhabit and shape and the girls here want to engage with complexity, not avoid it.

And perhaps that is one of the reasons working here in particular feels so special. The girls we teach end up teaching us constantly in return.

They teach us to stay curious.
To listen carefully.
To laugh more often.
To remain humble about how much we still do not know.

Sometimes their questions are wonderfully direct, like when Merry in Lower Prep asks, whilst surrounded by book in our library, “Can we please just have even more books Mrs Newton?”

What a hopeful request that is. In an age of endless distraction, a child still asking for more stories, more knowledge and more opportunities to read should encourage us all.

Other times, I’ve been asked the biggest questions humanity has ever wrestled with:
“Are our souls part of our bodies?”
“How can we make the world a better place?”
“What do we need to do now to save our planet for the future?”

These are not small conversations. Nor are they secondary to education. They are education.

The Abbey is a place where curiosity is protected and celebrated and where I truly believe every girl feels safe asking difficult, unusual and imaginative questions without fear of embarrassment. In many ways, curiosity sits at the heart of genuine learning. Before perseverance, before scholarship, before expertise, there is wonder.

As adults, it can be tempting to believe our role is to have all the answers. Yet schools remind us daily that our role is also to model curiosity ourselves: to think deeply, reflect honestly and remain open to learning from those around us, regardless of age.

Working with children means being invited continually into fresh perspectives on life. It means seeing joy in small things, humour in unexpected moments and hope in future generations.

And occasionally, it means being asked whether you secretly live in your office cupboard.

There cannot be many better jobs than that and I know the girls here will continue to keep the adults here curious, reflective and keen to keep learning!

Beccy Newton, Junior School Head