Dear parents,
Happiness, wellbeing, or, for our students of Greek, Eudaimonia. These words are synonymous with the increasing interest in pursuing a life beyond material possession and success. As educationalists with a focus on preparing our students for the future, we seek to question how we not only open the doors for our students via academic success, but also equip them with the tools to become happy, fulfilled and fully-rounded human beings.
My latest evening read is ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’ by Jonathan Haidt. My progress through the book is increasingly slow as we reach the end of term, but it has proved a fascinating read thus far in clarifying what we perhaps all know, deep-down, about what makes us truly happy. Haidt describes the ‘Hedonic Treadmill’, or our ability to quickly adapt to an improvement in circumstance: a sunny day after a cloudy one will make you happy, but months of sunny days will not. One conclusion: rather than strive for material possessions we should look for experiences, ideally shared, to make us happy.
There are many ways in which we can have experiences that enrich our lives, and I hope that our school can contribute in a small way towards providing these. On Monday night we saw one such example with our first ever external ‘Rock School’ gig at the Portland Arms in Cambridge. In the short space of two years we have gone from 0 to 17 bands in the school, and having the opportunity to play in such an iconic venue will provide memories to cherish. It was certainly an event I will remember for a long time.
We also have a number of trips going out over the Easter period, mostly exchange visits organised by our Modern Languages department. Not only will these be great experiences, but they are also the opportunity to form lifelong friendships, another non-material aspect of life proven to increase happiness. I am grateful to those colleagues who are giving up their time to accompany these trips.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish our Year 11 well in their GCSE exams. They will be returning after Easter, but these have been our final days together in ‘normal’ (I use the term loosely!) school. We have enjoyed their company during their time with us and we aim to continue to support them as best we can throughout the exam season. It may be too much of a stretch to link the experience of taking exams with a significant increase in happiness, but I do hope they get a satisfaction from having the opportunity to demonstrate all they have learnt up to this point.
Kind regards,
David Walker
Head of Senior School
