In this week’s “welcome back” assembly, I focused on one of the the Academy’s three core values – and the value for this term – kindness. Before, that I paid tribute to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, who died over the Easter holidays.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, started by Prince Phillip in 1956 (the same year that our school was founded), has made a significant difference to countless young people at our school and beyond. The scheme’s focus on young people improving themselves by developing a skill, and helping their communities through volunteering, is an excellent match for our own purpose – to inspire and enable young people to make a positive difference. We thank His Royal Highness for founding and promoting the Award Scheme named for him, and we commit to continuing the scheme in his name as part of his legacy.

Kindness

My assembly urged our students to think about kindness in three ways:

1. Be kind to others
2. Be kind to the environment
3. Be kind to yourself

Be kind to others

Being kind to others is a foundation stone of our Academy culture. We expect everyone in our Academy community to treat one another with kindness. We recognise that nobody is perfect, and that sometimes we all make mistakes – but that when this happens, putting things right is an essential part of our learning and growth.

In the assembly, I spoke about how a single act of kindness has a ripple effect, improving life at the Academy for countless others. A kind word, helping somebody out when they are having difficulties, or noticing when somebody else is struggling, can all help make somebody else’s day better. And when they have a better day, they are more likely themselves to offer a kind word to somebody else in turn. By this method, the wave of positivity ripples out across the Academy community – and beyond.

Of course, the opposite is also true. Unkind words and deeds damage the culture of our Academy by making somebody else’s day worse. That person’s negative experience can also ripple out as they may pass the negativity on to others. This is something we are all keen to avoid, and this is why I urged all our students through the assembly to think about the impact of their words and deeds on other people – and to think before they speak or act.

Finally, I spoke about the importance of making sure that everybody felt welcome, felt included, and felt that they belonged at Churchill Academy & Sixth Form. We have seen issues in wider society over this past year with discrimination and prejudice. We are determined that Churchill will remain an inclusive, welcoming community. It is everybody’s responsibility to ensure that we go out of our way to ensure that this happens, and that everyone “belongs” – no matter their background, where they come from, the colour of their skin, their gender or sexual identity or orientation, their family or who they are. These values of tolerance and inclusion are sacred to us at Churchill.

Be kind to the environment

We are lucky at Churchill to have a wide open, rural site, with lots of green spaces. Over the past couple of years we have made a significant investment in continuing to improve this, with our rooves now covered in solar panels, beautiful planting surrounding the central Broadwalk path in the middle of our site, and new trees and saplings planted all around the entire length of the new perimeter fence. Just this week, our students were out working with the Woodland Trust to plant saplings around the site.

Our lovely Sixth Formers out planting trees as part of the “Trees for schools” program, kindly donated by the @WoodlandTrust Lovely varieties ranging from Rowan, Silver Birch and Wild Cherry #greenchurchill #treeplanting @ChurchillAcad pic.twitter.com/OowozBCDWz

— Churchill Academy Green Team (@ChurchillGreen) April 21, 2021

It is essential that we all look after the beautiful environment. This includes reducing our waste, caring for our surroundings, and putting all of our litter in the bins. I saw the news coverage of public spaces over Easter as lockdown eased, with many members of the public leaving beautiful green spaces strewn with litter and debris. We will not tolerate that at Churchill – and we hope to instil good habits in our young people so that they will look after the environment beyond our Academy, as well as within it.

Be kind to yourself

Finally, I urged all our students to be kind to themselves. This past year has been tough on everyone, but children and young people especially have seen unprecedented disruption to education and society. They now face an uncertain future as society sets about recovering from the pandemic.

In this context, it is especially important that our students look after themselves. This does not mean lowering our expectations, our our standards – students must continue to push themselves to be the very best that they can be. But it does mean being honest with themselves, with us, and with each other about what is possible at this moment in time, and what is realistic. It means developing and maintaining healthy lifestyles in terms of diet, exercise, work and sleep. It means talking about problems when they arise, and not letting them fester.

It is natural and normal to feel uncertain and frightened, especially when looking around at the world as it is today. But, as Taylor Swift herself said, living a “fearless” life does not mean that we have no fear. It means that we acknowledge what is frightening in the world around us, and we succeed in it anyway.