Leaving a gem of a school

George Grenville School's Acting Headteacher Emma Killick invited me to attend their Year 6 leavers assembly last Friday. It was a pure joy to be there and I am most grateful for invitation. This is a lovely school. Whilst it is smaller than most the other primary schools in the area, it evidently has a very big heart and a massively committed staff team led by Emma. Emma has all the exuberance, great humour, steely determination and caring that all primary school heads need to have.

And I was so impressed by the Y6 tutor, Caroline Ryan, who went through each child who was leaving, one by one, with a tender and inspirational description of their talents and contributions to the school.

The assembly opened with Stephen Townsend, Chair of Governors who encouraged the youngsters to be themselves and look forward to the future. The assembly then went on for over an hour while each child managed to sit their patiently enjoying the proceedings with only the smallest amount of fidgeting. And some of the children were from the nursery. Again, I was hugely impressed by the way in which the school obviously teaches their students to listen carefully to what others are saying.

If Carlsberg did leavers' assemblies ....etc!! 

I made a small contribution to the event with a short speech where I highlighted five points for the leavers:

1) Stay in touch with your friends and don't let schools divide you. (I told them about how I lost a good friend Roger when I went to grammar school and he did not)

2) Be yourself for each one of you is unique. (I asked them to be proud that each one of them will be adding something special to the world that nobody else can)

3) Find your tribe because sometimes growing up can feel very lonely (I mentioned that there are always other young people out there who like the same music or also share the same interests. It is just a case of finding your own group)

4) Talk about stuff and don't bottle things up (Growing up is hard and I said there were always lots of people to talk with about anything that might be troubling them. Always better out than in.)

5) Have ambitions and be bold (As with my mayoral theme, I encouraged them to consider big and small ambitions - to become an astronaut or someone who programmes robots or someone who paints great pictures or whatever but to be themselves and have dreams!)