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Welcome Back…2015 starts with a bang!

09/01/2015

No sooner has the Christmas tree been consigned to recycling, remnants of the turkey and tinsel forgotten and New Year resolutions made and possibly already broken, and our 11+ girls and 13+ pupils are having to return straight into their respective assessments for senior schools.  Those I spoke to yesterday appeared calm and collected and even, dare I say, a little excited.

As a parent myself, I watching my oldest head off for a day of 13+ exams and I was proud to see the Orley group come together, sharing smiles but also supporting each other.  We all know that they will have a lifetime of tests ahead, sometimes returning with rich rewards, sometimes facing failure but always having the skills and grace to deal with both as well as the ability to learn through both.  In this moment I realised that they control the next step, not me and whilst this was personally rather challenging and daunting, it was also a moment of pride.  Of course, we don’t have the results as yet so I might well be posting something rather different next week!  But for now I will hold onto that moment when I saw our children walking confidently away from us into a room full of desks, ready and prepared to give their best…

Tim Calvey