We began the year focusing on our value of kindness, before turning our attention to determination to see us through the dark, cold winter. Last week’s assemblies, as the days lengthen into spring, focused on our value of Curiosity.

Our three values form three points on a character triangle, based on the work of CharacterLab. Kindness is a strength of the heart; curiosity a strength of the mind; determination a strength of the will. All three work together to support our students to be successful in school, and beyond, in pursuit of Martin Luther King’s maxim: “intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

Curiosity enables independent thinking and enquiry, and is the basis of human flourishing. Stone age man was driven by curiosity: what happens if I bang these two rocks together? Can I use this animal skin to store water, so I can travel further from the lake? And so on, generation after generation, we have built on the discoveries of our predecessors in a way which is unique to our species. And we are never satisfied, continuing to push the boundaries of what we know, to solve mysteries, to understand more about the world around us and the universe beyond.

It was this curiosity that led Einstein to develop his general theory of relativity – his attempt to explain how and why the universe behaves as it does. He was driven by a passionate desire to understand, to explain, to make sense of things. It is this uniquely human desire that we seek to foster in school.

This desire for discovery continues to this day, with the Curiosity Rover on Mars and recent landings on the moon. We continue to strive to know more, to understand more, to answer questions, to solve problems – and there is always more to learn.

Curiosity has many benefits:

• Good for our brains and aids memory: the more we learn, the better our brain gets at learning. This is because our broader general knowledge gives us more “anchor points” for new knowledge to hook onto, to connect with, and to secure itself in our memories.
• Helps us to be empathetic: understanding people who are different to us is essential to help us collaborate and cooperate with one another, to develop our empathy, and to improve our communities.
• Increases confidence: the more we understand about the world, the more confident we feel within it. We feel most insecure when we are uncertain, when we don’t know what is happening or why, or when we don’t understand things. The more we know, the more confident we feel.
• Contributes to happiness: when we learn something new, solve a problem, or something slots into place in our mind – that “lightbulb” moment – we feel a little rush of satisfaction. That is the release of dopamine into our system, a chemical designed to reinforce achievements by making us feel happy. So satisfying our curiosity actually makes us happier!

In my assembly, I went through all the ways we can satisfy our curiosity and extend our learning. The first – and most important – is through reading. Reading much, and reading widely, is how humanity has broadened and extended its knowledge over millennia. Using the library to ensure that we are reading books that we are interested in, and which take us beyond what we already know, is a guaranteed way to help us learn!

We are fortunate also to live in the age of the internet, where all the world’s knowledge is at our fingertips. Satisfying our curiosity has never been easier: we can ask Siri, ask Alexa, ask Google, ask ChatGPT. But we must be careful when using these sources, and always be curious about the answers we get back. Information we get online needs to be verified, as its accuracy cannot always be trusted. And AI, whilst it is useful, is subject to similar cautions: the answers we get from AI are only as good as the questions we ask, and the sources that the AI relies on. So there is no substitute for our human curiosity – we mustn’t become lazy, and let the machines think for us.

I concluded with three ways our students can show curiosity in the classroom and beyond:

• Enquire: Ask questions – “why” and “how” – and actively listen to the answers
• Explore: read around the subject – find out more
• Experience: Seek out new experiences, people and challenges

Keeping an open mind allows us, the inheritors of the benefits of millennia of human curiosity, to continue mankind’s constant journey to know and understand more – and to contribute to human progress. What a privilege learning is!