Mr President

17th January 2025

After the ‘carnage’ of last week we are back to something akin to normality this week. I know that there is a rhythm and routine being re-established in all of our institutions, with and for our children and young people. That’s necessary and important, especially at this time of year when external factors can impact upon our work, within our buildings, during the day. Thank you all for your support for us as we do our best in holding to our expectations and connected standards, despite all the bugs and viruses flying around at the moment. The nights are getting a little lighter, spring is on the horizon and before we know it we will be enjoying the green shoots of recovery.

We are at a point of transition. 2024 was a year of an enormous number of significant elections around the world. With the elections at home, in the UK, across Europe and in some of the world’s largest democracies, in India and the US for example, something like one quarter of the world population had an opportunity to vote last year. And if we believe in democracy to some degree we should recognise the inauguration of the next president of the United States of America, Donald Trump. We will all have our individual views on how he works and his intentions but, whether we like it or not, the American people have spoken and it will be President Trump for the next four years. It strikes me, as an older person, that in the moment we can get excited and exercised about and by such events but taking the long view is important and generally (I know not always), systems and structures protect people from the extreme political behaviours, especially in democracies. Let’s see what the next few months and next four years will bring.

It is probably important though to recognise that all of that transition does create a sense of instability. Change is difficult. Change can impact upon individuals, peoples, systems and structures in different ways. There has been evidence, just this week, that despite the erratic behaviour of some politicians in the US the system is working in the transitioning from Biden to Trump; exemplified through the work undertaken to secure the Israel/Gaza peace accord; long may that remain in place.

Thinking about the events which take place around the world and closer to home, reminds me that however we work, whatever structures and systems we employ, we are not immune from local, national or global events. On a Trust, school, college, professional basis we endeavour to inoculate ourselves and we do remain firm in our commitment to our vision and values. But we do not operate in a vacuum and we are mindful that any of our children, young people, their parents and carers, and our wider community are impacted by events which we cannot control.

And so how do we cope? It seems to me that there’s no point in worrying about the ‘what ifs’. Things do happen, often not in the way we expect, sometimes that’s good and sometimes it’s less than good, but we cannot control what the externals might be or bring. We might not like to look at the future but there might not be much we can do about the unknowns. All we can do is manage ourselves, our environment, our people and support each other in the now.

Despite the change of government in the United States of America there’s no pointing in worrying about what might be. What we can do is sleep well, rest up, take things easy, don’t overthink, and the future might just look after itself.

‘There is nothing permanent except change’. Heraclitus