"Oh, the places you'll go"

Reading: Excerpt from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” by Dr Seuss
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You are off to Great Places!
You are off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.
You're on your own, and you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
You're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any, you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course, you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there, in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen, and frequently do
to people as brainy, and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew.
Just go right along, you'll start happening too.
You'll be on your way up! You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers, who soar to high heights.
 
Good morning
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.” Never a truer word spoken.

Continuing last week’s theme, do you know what day it are today? World Grammar Day. Which are good, as Friday is World Proofreading Day. Today is also the start of British Pie Week - Yum. And Cheerleading Week – Yay. And Procrastination Week – if you can be bothered.

More importantly for you (I hope) it is also National Careers Week. Pursuit of a career is not the only reason that you are at Bromsgrove, but it is obviously a big part of what motivates your work here. The concept of a career is an interesting one. People sometimes distinguish between a job, which is work you do for others, day in and day out, simply to earn money and benefits, and a career, which is work you do with a long term plan of advancement and promotion in mind. The idea being that a career involves some degree of ambition, a strategy to better your life. There is a third concept too, that of a calling. A calling or a vocation suggests someone whose work is deeply aligned with who they are as a person. Which begs the question, at what stage does the work you do in life become part of who you are?

Hillary Clinton once said we shouldn’t confuse having a career with having a life. I’m not sure that I agree. That suggests that your career, your job or your calling, is somehow separate from your life. But unless you are planning to work once you are dead, your career is part of your life. I get equally irritated when people go on about their “work/life balance.” By all means try to find a healthy balance between your work and your leisure time, but if you don’t consider what you do for a job is part of your life, you have a miserable 60 years ahead of you.

So this week, this National Careers Week, you might want to take a moment to ask yourself, what exactly are you striving for each day, as you study at this School? A job, a career or a calling? And why? And in which field? And is that really your choice or some expectation that has been laid upon you? And does it really matter anyway? At which point you might prefer to go back to celebrating World Procrastination Week.

Some of you may have no clue at this stage about what you want to do when you leave school or university. That’s OK. Despite the pressure you may feel to choose courses, it is not uncommon to lack certainty about what you want to do in life when you are in your teens. I guarantee that more than half of the Upper Sixth have radically changed their plans over the past five years. It won’t necessarily get any more certain for any of you in the future.

Current predictions are that your generation will change occupation an average of 12 times before you eventually retire (if there is still such a thing as retirement then). Not 12 different jobs, 12 different types of job.

That sort of flexibility calls for a good deal of resilience and courage on your part. Not to mention some skills that you may need to learn beyond the traditional classroom. It is the reason why Miss Leech and the Bromsgrove Futures team are increasingly hearing that employers and industry leaders are looking for more than just academic ability when they recruit university graduates. You may still need that ‘A’ in Maths or Economics or Biology, but you also need a broad range of other skills if you are to stand out and to thrive.

Proof that you can manage not only words or numbers, but also people. That you can read a mood as well as you can read a graph. That you can apply manners or discretion or quick judgement as confidently as you can apply physics. For that reason, everything we offer you here has a purpose, a benefit for you in the future. Self-discipline on the CCF parade ground, teamwork on the sports field, confidence on the Routh stage, initiative in Young Enterprise – it all builds your personal skill set.

Many of you will also seek relevant work experience outside of the School, to improve your CVs and university applications. Two pieces of advice on that subject. First, don’t wait until the Sixth Form. Any work experience you get while you are in the Senior School is relevant and the earlier you accrue it, the less pressure there will be in you final year. Secondly, voluntary service is currently carrying as much weight, if not more, as straight work experience. Giving willingly of your time and talent to help others is a clear indicator of your character.

All of which reinforces what I said initially, that your presence at Bromsgrove is not solely to gain you a university education and a job. We want you to be not just employable, but also admirable, lovable, respectable commendable human beings. People who don’t abuse their privilege, but seek to use it to benefit others. However, the good news is that those traits of being a worthwhile citizen and a fulfilled human being are also the very attributes that the modern world of work is starting to reward.

Which brings me back to my other point – think hard, not just about what you want to do but who you want to be. It is funny how one little word can completely change the answer to a question. Ask a person to complete the sentence “When I grow up, I want to be…” and more often than not, you will get answers like “rich”, “successful” “happy”,

Yet ask them to complete the sentence “When I grow up, I want to be a …” and you are more likely to get “lawyer”, “doctor”, “pilot”. Not “a happy person” or “a successful one.”

That is, we seem to make a distinction between how we want to be as a person and what we want to do for a job. We should not. The world seeks ethical lawyers, empathetic doctors, generous business owners, moral designers. Ultimately, you will be defined by your work. Maybe not by how much you earn or what you do, but certainly by how you do it.

Winston Churchill reputedly once said “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

One last thing on the topic of National Careers Week (and try not to fall out of your seat in amazement that I am actually saying something positive about social media). Look out this week for an email from Miss Leech promoting a new initiative, a LinkedIn account for Old Bromsgrovians. LinkedIn being like a social network site for grown ups. For people who don’t need to spend four hours composing a seemingly spontaneous selfie of how they spent yet another perfect moment in their endlessly perfect life. Complete with the witty throw away hash tag that also took them another hour to think up.

Anyway … think about the advice, support and future connections you could benefit from by joining the LinkedIn group relevant to your future career. A network of others who had the benefit of the education you are receiving and because of that, will know of your character and the fact that you are much more than the grades on your Sixth Form qualification.
 
Presentations
House cross-country:
The individual winners were:
Seb Purvis – Junior Boys Natalie Hatfield – Junior Girls
Ash Kandola – Senior Boys Orla Walker – Senior Girls
Junior boys: 3rd Wendron-Gordon 2nd Lyttelton 1st Walters
Junior girls: 3rd Mary Windsor 2nd Oakley 1st Thomas Cookes
Senior boys: 3rd Wendron Gordon 2nd Housman Hall 1st Lyttelton
Senior girls: 3rd Mary Windsor 2nd Hazeldene 1st Housman Hall

Rugby Sevens:
Congratulations to the Boys’ U18 Rugby 7s team, who won all of their group, quarter and semi-final matches and then beat Bloxham School to win the final of the Solihull Invitation 7s.


Review
Basketball
Well done to the U15 Basketball team who beat North Bromsgrove.

Cross Country
A large number of our runners competed in an East Midlands league match on Saturday – results to be confirmed.

Football
Five very competitive fixtures were played against Oakham School with the U16A and B teams both registering good wins; the 2nd and 1st XI’s both drew 2-2 against strong opposition.

Golf:
The golf team had a very successful week after their winter break. On Tuesday they defeated Malvern College 3-0, with wins for Richard Vaughan and Alfie Broadhurst, Lili-Rose Hunt and James Humphries and Tom Griffiths and James Lord.

Then on Wednesday, they competed in the HMC Foursomes against Solihull, winning 2 – 1 in a tense match that went down to the last hole, with wins for Richard and Lili-Rose; and James Lord and James Humphries.

Hockey
Unfortunately, the U18 and U15 boys’ teams run in the national cup ended at the hands of Magdalen College and Uppingham School respectively.

In the block fixture against Oundle there were good wins for the U14B, U15C, U15B, U15A and 1st teams. The U14A team drew 1-1.

Netball
The majority of our netball teams also played Oundle School, the U14A, U16B, U16A, 2nd and 1st teams registered good wins. Both the U15A and B teams played in the Uppingham tournament, with the A team reaching the quarter-final and the B team their semi-final.

Orchestra in a Day
Thursday saw a remarkable 75 musicians aged between 6 and 18 from each section of Bromsgrove School, join forces to play some marvellously engaging music. The concert also featured the winners of the House Music Competitions last month - Vincent Li, Jude Wynter and Josh Osborn-Patel. All in all, it was a very inspiring concert.

Cultures Connect Concert
The large audience that attended the concert on Saturday evening truly enjoyed a magnificent display to talent. It is even more impressive that the whole event is pupil led and the camaraderie between all pupils was very evident. A real bringing together of all cultures.

Young Enterprise
Finally, well done to this year’s YE team for selling their products at the Spring Fair at Webbs Garden Centre.

Preview
Today we have photographs for School Monitors, Pre-Prep and Prep School ‘Survivors’ as well as the whole UVIth.

On Tuesday we have two events for aspiring Lawyers.
At 1.20pm Aled Luckman (OB Lupton) current Law student at University of Birmingham is part of a group called Transition Legal Writing. He is offering students the opportunity to gain first hand advice on legal essay writing and legal problem questions.

Then from 5.30 - 6.15pm in the Lecture Theatre, His Honor Judge Andrew Lockhart QC, Honorary Recorder of Coventry, Resident Judge at Warwickshire Justice Centre, will be speaking about a career in Law and life at the Bar and the Bench.

Please email Miss Leach to register your interest.

Also on Tuesday there will be a lunchtime concert at 1.15pm, featuring a host of soloists and the Girls’ Choir. All are most welcome to come along and be entertained.

On Thursday the 10th Annual Foundation Lecture takes place at the RAC Club London.

A reminder that the heats for this year’s Staff Reading Prize, on the theme of ‘Changes’, will take place from 1.15pm today, then Wednesday and Thursday in H8. This is one of the oldest School competitions, and always an enjoyable way to end the term. Readers from all year groups are invited. Each reader must perform one poem and one prose extract of his or her choice, related to the theme of Changes. Prose extracts must be no more than 500 words and both pieces must be published works. If you would like to take part, please simply turn up and read, with both the poem and prose extracts ready.

Please stand as we say the Grace together.