January is a dispiriting month, isn’t it? The weather is cold and often miserable (the recent snow notwithstanding); the evenings are still long and dark; and the glow created by time with loved ones during the festive season has long since dissipated. After a period of merriment and rejoicing, January is the month of clean living, and resolutions for the new year to help me find a new, improved me. The newspapers and my social media feeds are filled with guidance to this effect: easy low-calorie dinners; five things to do to help you to live longer; three simple home workouts that will burn fat fast; four ways to be more economical with my money. A YouGov poll done late in 2025 had ‘get fit and exercise more’ as people’s top resolution, followed closely by ‘eat more healthily’ and ‘spend less.’
I could certainly buy into this propaganda. I could resolve to eat less butter, do more exercise and buy supermarket own-brand products rather than their expensive alternatives. These things feel sensible and wholesome, like they will do my body and my wallet good, and indeed they probably will. They are all worthwhile goals in and of themselves, but I have to say they make me a little gloomy, at a time when the weather is already having a lot of success in doing that. I’ve been reflecting on why that is, and I wonder if it’s related to the nature of my resolutions, which have focussed entirely on strenuous self-improvement. I suspect that this may be a worthless endeavour, as I strongly identify with Jo March in Little Women: “I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end.”
Perhaps the answer lies in accepting that, as TS Eliot wrote, “last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice.” Rather than trying to change myself and become more worthy, maybe what the new year offers is a chance to find a new language for expressing old things. Maybe what I’m looking for is a reframing of what already exists. In this season of darkness, as we wait for the northern hemisphere to slowly tilt back towards the sun, I resolve instead to keep ‘doing me’ and, in doing so, to turn my face to the things that bring light into my life.
To start with, I resolve to look for the joy in the small things. I am fortunate to work in a community that places joy at its centre, so this feels entirely achievable! There is joy in seeing students smile as they see their friends when they come into school each morning; there is joy in watching Abbey girls in the classroom, where they dig into their learning, and outside it, where they pursue their passions. There is joy in watching the buds swell on the magnolia tree, reminding us always of the promise of spring.
I resolve to engage more with the world around me. I regularly walk to The Abbey from my home in West Reading, and rather than stick my headphones in and hunker down, I resolve to keep my eyes up: looking at the sky on mornings where there is a beautiful sunrise, and looking down the road as I head home when the cat that lives in the house at the end of Kendrick Road may come out to say hello. Rather than get an extra twenty minutes of work done at my desk, I resolve to have a proper lunch in the dining room with my colleagues or to stick my nose into one of the many lunchtime activities going on across the school.
Lastly, I resolve to walk with a little more confidence in who I am and what I bring to the table – a lesson I learn every day as I watch Abbey girls thrive. Being in an all-girls school supports a culture of achievement and builds confidence, creating an environment where our students feel free to make the mistakes that are necessary to learning, and celebrate both their own successes and those of others. I can definitely use a little more of that in my own life.
So, as we look at the new year stretching ahead, full of promise and opportunity, I resolve to be content with who I am already, and all that I have around me. It’s OK that it’s the same old me walking into 2026. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!
Ms Anna Brunskill, Assistant Head