This session where we are all together in our cathedral just shy of exams is significant for you - and for your school too. For the school it’s all about the passing on of a brilliant group of young adults. Our 3rd coeducational year group, both trail blazers and role models. For you all it’s a right of passage. The end of your time here after seven years or just two. The end of the second act and the start of an interval before the next begins.
It’s a bit bland for me to say that I hope you’ve enjoyed your time here, but I really do hope that is true. I really do hope that you feel that we have done our bit to help you on towards your next stage in life, perhaps even the next steps towards you realising your dreams. But more than that I hope that you have had the chance to gain a breadth of perspective too. Your sixth form years have been really important for you but they have been just as crucial for your school.
It is difficult to find the right words on days like this one, so I am going to use someone else’s words instead. That someone else is Alan Bennett (he's 90 tomorrow!), this country’s greatest living playwright, and the words that I will use come from his most famous play ‘The History Boys’. The play tells the story of an eclectic group of upper sixth formers (Year 13s) – all boys in this case – as they work and play in a 1980’s grammar school. Just like you, studying A levels, aiming high and preparing for university. But drill down and the play is really about learning and the intrinsic value of knowledge and education. The heart of the debate is between a young teacher (Irwin) who delivers lesson in a way that enables the boys to pass the exams, but no more than that. And on the other side is Hector, a shambolic but deeply emotional, creative and intellectual English teacher who delights in the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake. The true purpose of education is deconstructed through the playscript, and the drama is finally wrapped up by Hector telling the boys this on their last day in school before their exams:
“Pass the parcel. That’s sometimes all that you can do. Take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on boys. That’s the game I want you to learn. Pass it on”
That’s where we are, right here and right now. That parcel is changing hands. You’ll sense that during the togetherness to follow through the rest of today and tomorrow. Enjoy that feeling – it’s really very special.
Good luck for the exams, and thank you for helping to make things special here in Salisbury.
