You may not have realised it as you made your way across the diagonal path towards the Cathedral this morning – but this is a milestone. An important milestone for the school and a significant one for you if you’re in Year 11 or Year 13 as you’ve already heard. All of us. Together. In our parish church and, now, the only assembly hall that we’ve got where everyone can now fit in. A slice of history right here, right now, on a Thursday morning in March … You probably didn’t anticipate being a part of history when you shut the front door this morning. But here we are, and more history will be made after the service when we are all part of a huge photo; the whole school, as one.
Those of you who have been to School Council meetings in No. 11 will have seen other bits of history on the walls of the Carpenter Room. Dozens of framed photos, every one a snapshot of Bishop’s, lines of faces from the past in serried ranks, all the way from 1890 to 2018, every one capturing a moment in time. Each photo portrays a complex organic entity – hidden meaning lies within each; relationships, interactions, potential all lie hidden in plain sight through the camera lens, and the same will be true this morning. Those complex concepts synergy and symbiosis, come into focus – we work together, learn together and life is infinitely more enriching as a result.
Except it hasn’t quite been like that over the past two years has it? Exactly two years ago to the day I wrote a blog entry which said this “the school site is largely locked and silent. The sun shines from an azure sky free of vapour trails, and when I wake in the morning I can hear partridges and woodpeckers instead of the swish of tyres on tarmac”. Lockdown had arrived, and instead of being together we were largely banished to our own compartments; synergy and symbiosis went into hibernation as the virus began to spread.
That is why this morning is a bit of history. You’ll have felt the throb of life return and accelerate. You’ll have heard and seen the layered complexity return to the school, whether that is in House Music, in assemblies and talks, on trips, in lessons, on the sports field. There’s something quite intoxicating about the sheer busyness of things, and the scale of what we share doesn’t really hit you until you sit here, surrounded by faces. Community, interaction and interdependence are back. Together we are much more than just the sum of individual parts.
I spend quite a bit of my time every term travelling to other schools to talk about Bishop’s. It’s a great thing to do – I’m hugely proud of you lot and what you achieve, week in, week out, and talking about the school community comes naturally. I must confess that I have yet to employ John Donne’s verse to help me with Sixth Form recruitment and win hearts and minds, but his imagery is compelling. We are all part of a body, an entity, an idea – together in spirit, faith, energy and learning as much as location. The school was diminished by Covid – but not defeated and, as we are finally all back together in our Cathedral, the coming months look really exciting. And of course, we meet at a time when solidarity – togetherness – has never been more important. The trauma in Eastern Europe shows everyone of us just how important working with others can be. The tests of teamwork are coming thick and fast through the 2nd decade of the 21st century.
So this morning is about the re-forming of something that was momentarily lost, of history moving on once more. Our school has grown and changed during the time of Covid, but when the big photo is taken after the service it will still have a familiarity to it. We are at last all in one place after a difficult journey; onward travel awaits – arrivals and departures, but this today in the sunshine of a Spring morning we are together at last.
SDS
