There are weeks in a school year when everything seems to happen at once. The last couple of weeks have been, even by Abbey standards, exceptionally busy ones, crammed with end-of-year events of different types. We have had our Senior School Speech Day and food festival and Junior School celebration afternoon, as well as sports days and graduation ceremonies for Lower III, Upper III, Upper IV, Upper V and, of course, our Upper VI leavers. They have been wonderful community events, and it is lovely to see so many proud family members attending and joining in the fun.
We take very seriously our goal at this school to value every individual, and these ceremonies are a lovely way of marking every student’s achievements, large or small, and what they are most proud of from the last year. They are a moment to stop, look backwards and reflect. And yet at the same time they are pauses before new beginnings, whether that is starting at senior school, moving into a new section of the school, or leaving school. Schools are unusual places because every July we celebrate completion while preparing for fresh starts. The finish line of one race becomes the starting line for another.
What are we really celebrating at these events? On the surface, they are about prizes and the winning of races, but underneath that we are celebrating much more important things. We are recognising human qualities of resilience, hard work, curiosity, effort and character. We are celebrating our wonderful students and also the deeply committed Abbey staff who support them. I hope that families attending these events have seen outstanding depth and breadth of achievement founded on exceptionally warm human relationships and good values.
One of our inspirational Abbey school poets laureate, Ellanya in Lower V, summed up the combination of milestones and meaning more effectively in her poem commissioned for Speech Day than I can. It is copied below with her permission.
Before everyone disperses for a well-earned summer, it’s worth pausing to recognise not simply what pupils have achieved, but who they are becoming as people. I wish everyone at The Abbey a summer of rest, reading, adventure and renewal.
What Lies Between
Today, we celebrate what can be seen:
The certificates.
The scores.
The satisfaction.
But every achievement begins somewhere quieter.
In early mornings and late evenings.
In pages turned and turned again.
In small choices that did not feel small at all.
We admire the summit.
But no one arrives at a summit.
It is built, step by step, long before it is ever seen.
In every attempt that becomes progress.
In every moment that becomes understanding.
Success does not appear suddenly.
It grows.
In curiosity that keeps asking questions.
In discipline that keeps us going when it would be easier to stop.
In the steady belief that effort matters, even when the outcome remains uncertain.
Perhaps some will call it talent.
And yes, talent may be part of the story.
But talent is only a starting point.
A spark, not the fire.
A possibility, not the outcome.
What turns aptitude into achievement
is not a single moment of dazzling brilliance,
but the determined decision, made again and again,
to show up, to try, to continue.
And that is what we celebrate today.
Not just success,
but the people you have become on the way to it.
For what the world sees as achievement
is only the visible edge
of years of quiet dedication
roaring into the light.
Ellanya (Lower V)
Dr Sarah Tullis, Head