Remembrance

14th November 2025

I hope that you’ve had a good week. It’s been a wet end to the working week and the weekend doesn’t look much better. That’s November for you. I hope that you have got something decent planned and can stay dry and warm.

I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of the children, young people and staff for supporting and participating in the Remembrance events which took place across the three schools and the college this past Tuesday. I know that all of the institutions make a great effort to manage the event carefully, with respect and due deference to the symbolism and the history which lay behind the initiation of the event, back in 1919, when their first Remembrance event took place. It’s very important that our children and young people do understand that, whatever we might believe about how wars are originated and fought, we remember these events are not a celebration of war but an appropriate response to the horrors that wars bring. Wars impact upon everyone be those in the services; of the army, navy, air force and associated services; and on ordinary people, just going about their daily lives. Sadly, we still see that around the world today. Each and every day brings further horrors into our living rooms. Our Remembrance events allow us to reflect; on the past and the present.

The theme of ‘service not self’ seemed to resonate and was particularly well received this year. It is certainly something that we discuss and understand well, working in our educational and wider communities. Service might be an important and key tenant of what it means to be British or a British Value.

There is much made in the media about what it means to be British. We, across our schools and college, have a ‘British Values’ statement which sits on our websites. We endeavour to encapsulate what it means to be British, in the 21st-century. Some commentators can use what it means to be British to create a sense of difference and demarcation. That’s wrong and should not be allowed to happen. For me, the Remembrance events, held across our institutions, are real examples of ‘British Values’ in action, in practice. Ordinary British citizens taking the time to stop and reflect, in a respectful and mature manner; be that the children at Sitwell Junior School, who could be just seven years of age, through to our more mature eighteen/nineteen-year-old students at the college.

What it means to be British is complicated. It isn’t simple as some would want us to believe. It certainly isn’t about one’s ethnicity, the colour of one’s skin, one’s religious persuasion or otherwise. It is about something much greater than that. I’m not going to endeavour to define that, but I do like the wonderful poem by the recently deceased British poet Benjamin Zephaniah

The British

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

A fine way to go into the weekend. Have a great weekend, whatever you’re doing.