A New Year...but the same values.

As the new school year got underway, the Headmaster spoke to pupils about the values that have helped make The Grange into the happy and successful community that it is.

I don’t know how many of you have been following a couple of stories from America about that country’s relationship with Islam. The first has been the debate about whether a big new mosque, run by moderate Muslims should be built in the vicinity of the site of the 9/11 massacre site in New York. The second, timed to coincide with the 8th Anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow is of a small church in Florida that is organising International Burn –a-Koran day, to widespread condemnation from muslims, Christians and those of all other faiths and no faith at all. I’m glad to see that as of last night the event is now ‘on’ hold’

These issues have opened up a debate about ‘American Values’. On the one hand you have a minority claiming that American Values include the destruction of all that threatens the United States including, it seems, anything to do with Islam, while others prefer to see tolerance and freedom of religious practice as being much more typically Ameircan virtues. In Washington, David Axelrod, the senior political adviser to President Barack Obama, reiterated the determination of the White House to prevent the torching of the books. "That church may have the right to do what it’s doing but it's not right," he said. "It's not consistent with our values... I hope that conscience and good sense will take hold."

It’s a word that we often hear these days, values.

But what do we mean by values? Most simply put, they are the things that an individual or a group of people show are most important to them in the way they treat others. They are the behaviours or attitudes that someone or some organisation consider have most value. Sometimes they are written down or clearly articulated, sometimes they are just obvious from the way someone acts or a group of people goes about its business.

I wonder what you’d say if I asked you what the values of The Grange School are? What are the ways of behaving, what are the attitudes that we value most and that go towards making this school the largely happy, positive and successful place that, in general, it undoubtedly is?

Last year I set myself the task of trying to define the most important values of this school, to put into words those things that underpin all that is most positive about our life here, and has helped to make the school what it is. It was very hard indeed to encapsulate such things in writing, and it took many attempts and much help from many people to get towards something that seemed to do the job pretty well. 

With such collaboration emerged the following. Let me read it to you:

At The Grange School we value particularly an approach to our community from all who work and learn here which is:
• Caring, warm and generous
• Respectful of others as a matter of principle
• Straightforward, open and uncomplicated, demonstrating integrity in all aspects of school life
• Wholehearted, demonstrating commitment to being the best that one can be and to the hard work needed in rising to the challenge of high standards and high expectations
• Sensitive to the needs of others and accepting of their differences

Let me pick one or two things out of this.

Firstly, notice how care for others is the first idea mentioned, and particularly the use of the word generous. Generosity, I believe, has been a real hallmark of The Grange from its foundation: both pupils and staff show a willingness to go the extra mile in their commitment, evidenced, for example, by the large number of teachers who over the next two weekends will be giving up their free time to take the fifth years to do their bronze DofE in Yorkshire, or accompanying all the First Years to Bewerley Park, or managing football teams, or holding swimming trials, or supervising Rowing in the river. I think generosity is a key feature if this school, and being a member of our community should bring with it an obligation to be generous in return.

Secondly, one of the things that has impressed me about The Grange from my very first connection with it, has been the way that adults and students show each other respect as a matter of course, and don’t wait for the other to earn it before they are prepared to show it. A very different approach from many schools that I know. That idea that you show someone respect because it is simply the right thing to do, must continue to form the backbone of our relationships.

Thirdly being straightforward with others is a sign of respect too…integrity means being the person that you say you are, showing your values in your actions, not just your words, being honest, to use a well known phrase, letting your yes be yes and your no be no.

Fourthly, wholeheartedness is a key attribute: give life here everything you’ve got, give your best and aim to be the best ‘you’ that you can be; we set high standards and have expectations: it is fundamental part of being here to rise to them.

Finally, we’re back to how we treat others and we’re challenging selfishness as was the case with the first statement. Not expecting others to be like us, valuing rather than exploiting the ways in which they are different from us, and trying to understand how we can help them is another mark of the respectful and civilised community we want to continue to build here.

Why am I telling you this? Because I would like us to adopt this statement of Grange School Values as the means by which we all judge our behaviour and our approach to school and to everyone we encounter here.
For example perhaps teachers would not to have to refer to what it says in the school rules when something is wrong (though, of course, that will still be necessary) but rather point out or ask you to consider whether your behaviour or the choices you have made demonstrate the school’s values. And on your report, when your form teacher is writing about your attitude to school and how you get on with others, I wonder whether this statement might form one useful yardstick by which they might choose to measure your progress and contribution. I know that in the vast majority of cases such a comparison would lead to very positive conclusions.

Can you live up to these values in the way you approach work , play and relationships at this school? Can I, because these values apply just a much to me as they do to you. I’ll be wanting to measure up how I act, the decisions I make, how I treat people and the example I am required to set against them, but that’s absolutely as it should be.

I don’t bang on about what a great school this is because I’m paid to. Nor do I do it because I have nothing else to say. I do it because it is true.

It is true because the people within the school, by and large, share the values that have made and continue to make it that way.

These, perhaps, are those values: let’s live them out as best we can.