Happy New Decade

ROUTH ASSEMBLY
Mark Reading
Wednesday December 11th 2019

Good morning and welcome to our Mark Reading Ceremony for this Michaelmas Term. Before I announce the GCSE subject prizes and various other awards, let me commend you all on an excellent term. One in which you have laid foundations for the rest of your year, whether it be your first or your last at the School. At thirteen weeks, Michaelmas is our longest term - you should feel rightly pleased if you have persevered with a positive outlook right to the end, not wasting opportunities or letting yourself or others down along the way.

I note especially those who have joined the School in the Sixth Form this year, proud to have won a place here and quick to establish their academic career. Likewise, particular praise to those newly arrived in the Lower Fourth who have settled so quickly into Senior School life. It seems a while ago now that you all walked the Malvern Hills in pursuit of your Bromsgrove Badge.

You were impressive then and have remained so since. You have come to understand the School’s high expectations and most of you are already meeting and exceeding them.

It has also been pleasing to witness so many of you from all year levels continuing to give of your time and talents to the local community as part of Bromsgrove Service. Don’t ever underestimate the power of those good works, or the reward.

Service also from all those committed to the CCF this term, not to mention two very successful field days, a military skills day and RAF flying experiences at Cosford. Duke of Edinburgh candidates have been equally impressive, with a practice expedition to Long Mynd and a number of Gold awards to be presented shortly.

As is to be expected at Bromsgrove, our sporting reputation also continued to flourish this term. Expected, but never taken for granted. I congratulate every one of you who has worn the School’s colours and pride this term.

We started in fine form, with the U17 Boys Cricket team being crowned National Champions and we finish with many other teams still in contention for their own national competitions.

Collectively, you have played 409 fixtures for 67 different teams in 11 different sports this term. More importantly perhaps, each of you will have your own proud memories of your favourite matches of the Winter season. Win or lose, sport has made you all stronger in more ways than one.

So too has there been a high level of output from the Performing Arts. We have enjoyed a feast of entertainment since September, from a multitude of concerts to the wonderful success of this year’s House Song. In Music, so too in Drama, where of course, we have ended the term with the spectacle that was ‘Great Expectations’, delivered with such professionalism in Cobham last week. I commend every person in the cast and crew for a truly exceptional performance.

In the midst of this wealth of co-curricular commitment, the School has maintained excellent academic performance, as is witnessed in the fine set of grades and reports that have just been issued. AEO grades continue to help identify more precisely your individual areas of excellence and of opportunity for growth. Never forget that, whatever other triumphs we may enjoy as a School, we are first and foremost an academic institution, a fact we will shortly acknowledge with the presentation of GCSE prizes.

For all that, you have still found time for the best of House life. You have competed; in sport, music, debating, soon drama and the inter-House quiz. Your Houses remain the centre of your School experience, no more so than at this festive time of year, when the decoration of your studies and the traditions of your respective Christmas parties are a tribute friendship and comradery.

If then, at the end of all that, you feel a little tired right now, so you should. And if, having played your part in sport and performance and service and academic pursuits and House life, you also feel a bit satisfied, so too, you should. It is such a cliché to say that you get out of life what you put in, but there is just no avoiding the fact that it is true. Those of you who feel most exhausted today, at the end of this long term, will also be those who have most cause to feel proud. Those who do not, should perhaps be asking themselves “What more could I have done?” And more importantly, “How can I squeeze more out of Bromsgrove when I return in January?”

 
Presentations
Prizes awarded for best performance at GCSE:
English Literature Nikhil Gour
Religious Studies Molly-Jo Sword
Mathematics Lauren McLean
French Yilia Chen
Spanish Hugh Abraham
Art Yuki Chan
Textiles Eleanor Rea
German Oliver Owen
Economics Brian Chu
Physics James Bateman
P E  Imogen Vaughan-Hawkins
D t Ian Tong Pang (Joaquim Pang)
Drama Ciara Hughes
History Eric Li
Music Josh Lawson
Multiple winners
Matthew Cheng Classical Civilisation and Combined Science
Ekaterina Stepanova English as a Second Language and Business  
Lucia Goodwin English Language, Geography, Biology, Chemistry and Latin 

Bromsgrove Service
It has been a busy term for Bromsgrove Service and I commend all who have served the local community so diligently and represented the School so well. For their work in service this term, the following are highly commended for their dedication: Beau Baines, Elizaveta Toropova and Ed Buckley
I invite them forward to receive their awards.

Badminton
Congratulations to the U14 Girls and the U16 Boys and Girls for winning the district round of the national badminton competition. Those squads all now move to compete in the County round next term.
I invite all three teams to collect their medals.

Indoor Hockey
Congratulations also to the U16 boys Indoor Hockey Squad who finished runners up in the Midlands Championships, thereby qualifying for the National Finals at Whitgift School in January. A tremendous achievement and I now invite that team forward to receive their medals.

House Competitions
The House Rugby Shield Final for those boys not in school A or B teams.
Final standings: 3rd Walters,  2nd Elmshurst,    1st Housman Hall
I invite the Captain of Housman Hall forward to receive the trophy

Hockey
In the Junior competition, results were as follows:
Cup: 3rd Hazeldene 2nd TC 1st Oakley
Plate: 3rd TC 2nd Oakley 1st Mary Windsor
I invite the Oakley and Mary Windsor captains to receive their trophies.

In the Senior competition
Cup: 3rd Oakley 2nd Hazeldene 3rd Thomas Cookes
Plate: 3rd Mary Windsor 2nd Housman Hall 1st Thomas Cookes
I invite both Thomas Cookes captains to receive the trophies.


Great Expectations
I have already mentioned the remarkable success of the Senior play, but let me say again how grateful we are to the cast and crew of Great Expectations. To stage a performance of one of Dickens most famous – and most intricate – tales is no mean feat. Yet you did it with absolute professionalism. Indeed, many who watched on one of the four nights commented that it was better than many professional productions they had seen. I commend you all again for bringing us such superb entertainment.


Junior House Debating
Thank you to all who competed in Junior House Debating this term. The standard of the competition was exceptional, and the two final debates were outstanding. After hard deliberation by the judges, the winners of this year’s Junior House Debating are the team from Elmshurst House.
I invite Hamish and Amos come forward to collect their trophy

Duke of Edinburgh Award
It gives me great pleasure to invite the following on stage to receive their Gold awards.
Georgia Doohan-Smith, Shams Ali Baig, Max Campbell, Madeline Cooper, Lauren Court, Emma Dolan, Freddie Harvey-Gilson, Jade Jenkins, Kitty Luscombe, Lucy Lyu, Tang Mahathorn, Fleur Parris, Jack Peplow, Catie Ranger, Orla Walker and Helen Wu

 
Final Address
And so, to Christmas. Given all that I have just mentioned, my wish for each of you is a restful and rejuvenating holiday. I’m sure the main focus of that holiday will be Christmas. But most of you will probably also celebrate something else too - the passing of the old year and the birth of the new.

Those who follow the Gregorian calendar at least. For those who observe the Chinese New Year, your celebrations will come a little later in the month. But whenever you commemorate it, the New Year is a time to reflect on the events and achievements of the past twelve months. How, I wonder, will you remember the last of the twenty teens, 2019?

Over the next few weeks, the media will start to do that reflecting for you of course. We are about to enter the “Year in Review” Season. There will be lists: the top-grossing films of 2019, biggest hit songs, best music videos, top-selling books, most popular games. There will be compilations of sporting highlights (In England, that will include Cricket but not Rugby. In NZ, we will just skip that bit altogether). And someone will produce a tribute segment to all the famous people who died this year, like:
• English cricket great, Bob Willis
• Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld
• Brilliant writers: the Australian Clive James, and American Nobel laureate Toni Morrison
• Former French President, Jacques Chirac
• Formula One Legend, Niki Lauda
• Actor Peter Mayhew, better known as the man who played Chewbacca in Star Wars
• Even the internet’s beloved Grumpy Cat passed away.

No doubt there we will also be reminded of the trivia that somehow became worthy of global attention, simply because it “went viral”. Whatever that actually means – last I heard, a virus was something to be avoided. Anyway, I’m sure the big philosophic questions of 2019 will be dredged up again.

Like what it is, exactly, that the Kardashians are famous for?

Still, perhaps I should not be so disparaging? Is it any wonder that we sometimes don’t want to lift our eyes above the mundane, when truly significant world events are so grim and hard to absorb?

As with the years that preceded it, 2019 continued to bring terror to the innocent in cities around the world. It started with the appalling atrocity of the Christchurch mosque shootings in my own country and has ended with more senseless violence on another London bridge. Yet this was the year that ISIS were finally defeated in Syria. I wonder whether we dare hope that the Twenties might bring a new decade of peace.

That will require leadership of course. Whatever else it may be remembered for, 2019 will not go down in the history books as a vintage year for civil behaviour from world leaders. President Trump continued to be publicly belligerent and combative, trading public insults with many of his traditional allies as well as his foes.
Although he changes his mind so quickly, it’s hard to know. First Kim Jung-un was a “mad little rocket man” then he was “a really, really great leader.” He went from calling his next-door neighbour, Prime Minister Justin Treadeau of Canada “two faced” before he remembered that he was actually “a great guy, a man I have great respect for.” Yet Trump was not alone in using intemperate language on the world stage. Russia’s President Putin was unapologetic after the Salisbury poisonings, France’s Macron called Nato “brain dead”, the Chinese Premier entered a trade war with the US, and had harsh words for Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, here in Britain, any hint of civility disappeared completely, as politicians on all sides descended into trading personal abuse over the disaster that Brexit has become. Our parliament is supposed to be a model for measured and respectful debate, yet in 2019 it turned into a brawling pit of which we can only be ashamed, whatever our political persuasion. We can only hope that tomorrow’s election, whatever the result, will bring a return to decorum and respectful conduct.

Who knows whether the example set by world leaders influences the general public mood? Without question, 2019 will be remembered as a year of global discontent and rancour. All too quickly, public protests have turned nasty, with disruption and violence undermining their original purpose. The yellow vest protestors in France have brought months of vandalism and destruction. The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong has become bitter and prolonged, to the point where deep damage has been done to that society.

Other protests have been less destructive and more global, but it is hard to say whether they have been any more effective. Will 2019 will be remembered as the year in which the world finally woke up to the immediate threat posed by climate change? If it does, a young girl from Sweden may well have a place in history. Greta Thunberg galvanised people around the world, especially the young, to take action before it is too late. Yet even as she took her place on the world stage, unprecedented flooding continues around the globe, fires burn from the Amazon to Australia, and this decade closes out as the hottest ever recorded.
So, with the luxury of time over the next few weeks, how will you remember 2019? Much of that will depend upon your personal priorities of course. What will last in your memory is a function of what you value. What touched you most?

Perhaps it will be macro world events, perhaps issues in your own country? For most of us though, 2019 will live in our memories, as most years do, filtered by our personal experiences. Was this the year that you sat your first public examinations? The year that you made a first team, a starting line-up, a captaincy, a cast list or a lead role? Learned to drive? When you go to that family gathering over the break and a distant relative sidles up to you and asks how the year has been, what will you say?

Here’s my hope. When you are asked what you did this year, what was most memorable about 2019, I hope the answer is something involving confidence and creativity. Yes, you inhaled textbooks and exhaled assignments. Clocked up gym hours and scoffed down Dining Hall meals. Yes, you crossed off chores and consumed social media and good on you for all of that.

But what did you achieve this year that was unique and positive? What did you do that was unprecedented? What did you compose? What did you build? What new thoughts did you give birth to? What lines did you own? What moves did you master? What friendships flourished? What newfound confidence have you carved out for yourself this year?

History may well record 2019 as a year of disruption and discord. A year of protest around the globe. But that does not always need to be so in the years to come. We are creative beings, born to harmony and collaboration. It is in our DNA to initiate and invent. We can’t fix what’s broken in the real world by hiding in the virtual one. We have to do things, real things.

Right now, Greta Thunberg is planning new initiatives.

Right now, scientists are inventing new cures, engineers are creating new wonders.

Right now, there’s a new author, sports star, fashion icon, political firebrand being born somewhere, soon to start something different, something outrageously brilliant. Each will gain their confidence and hone their creativity somewhere. I would like to think it will be at a school like Bromsgrove.

And therefore, I would like to think that every single, creative, confident one of you will one day make just such a difference because of what you learned here in 2019. And what you will continue to learn next year.

No doubt there will be many puns next year about perfect eyesight, 2020 vision. Let me get in first and say, that is my New Year’s wish for each of you when you return in 2020. A perfect vision, of what you can do, who you can be and the difference you can make. Until then though, Merry Christmas to you all.