A message from the Rector

By Richard Hall | Posted: Thursday October 12, 2023

It is exciting to be back at school with our boys.

The value for our final academic term is excellence. This can be a difficult word in the context of a school. Not because we do not extoll the virtues of desire and grit needed to be excellent, but it is just for some students, that word automatically switches them off. They don't believe they can be.

My job is to give them the belief that they have the potential to be excellent, and they do. In a school context, there are many ways in which a young person can be excellent, as an academic, in the arts or sport, but also as a person. Especially a person who is working on being a better friend, more reliable or more honest. But more importantly, it is letting them see their own reflection and potential.

So this week we framed excellence as part of their self worth. Not that they have to be excellent to have any self worth, rather they have the mindset to expect excellence in themselves, that they remove any mental barrier they may have to being excellent. Their self worth is dictated best by them, and not by others and there is no real reason why in some area they cannot achieve excellence.

In the pursuit of self worth we ask them to define it for themselves. We hope they choose healthier options than drinking lots, driving fast and any other self destructive behaviour they all have access to. We ask them to look up, not down and we praise them when they achieve, even a small milestone for some, can be a first step.

As a community, expecting excellence in an OB's student is a good thing. Supporting them through encouragement and high expectations works well because they learn to accept it, to expect it and hopefully to live it.

I really look forward to this term being excellent.