Dreams 1

Song "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas"

Ah! Isn't that nice. The topic for this week's assemblies is Vision. It's perhaps a word used relatively rarely in everyday speech. We might be more familiar with the word "dream", which is why I started with the song. I suppose if we use the word "vision" it would be in the sense of eyesight. His or her vision isn't quite right so will have to visit the optician. You might also use the word in the sense of a ghostly apparition, a spook. But in the school philosophy, it is used in the sense of imagination or foresight, a description of an ideal towards which an individual or a group is working. We had a vision in that sense, presented to us in Friday's assembly last week.

Of course vision is a key idea in the school's philosophy. It's also a key idea in management theory, along with mission statements and the like. Together these ideas give a sense of purpose and direction to an organisation. They foster better working relationships and greater efficiency through shared ideals, goals and values. Everybody in the organisation knows what they are working towards.

And what has vision to do with the school's philosophy? What is its role? Let's just think for a moment about some of the key words we've been using in our assemblies this term: Scholarship, Challenge, Commitment, Responsibility, Altruism. All of these belong very much to the present as well as forming goals for the future. But a worthwhile vision is far more forward-looking. We all want and will work towards the vision, but perhaps we recognise we'll never quite achieve everything in it. Still, we can all try, and if we do, we'll get a long way towards achieving the vision. It's got to be better than the alternative. If people don't have an aim, if they try for nothing, surely that's exactly what they will achieve.

At this time of term teachers are busy writing reports on all of you. There can be a degree of frustration from your point of view with your report. Perhaps you've worked really hard, you've tried the best you know how, and yet you get a report in which the teacher says you could do better. You might question whether it is ever possible to please a teacher. But from the other side, there's also a degree of frustration.

With a teacher's experience, often he or she can identify a particular weakness, which, if tackled, could lead to far better progress. In that sense, teachers are in the vision business; they want the very best for their students. They look for potential; they make grade predictions, for example, which are particularly important at A-level. Teachers want to equip their students for the future.

But vision doesn't belong to teachers alone. Any whole school vision is organic and dynamic. It must change because people and circumstances change. A school vision is made from the hopes and dreams of everybody in the school community. It belongs to each of us. Each of us has personal ambitions, perhaps not carefully thought out at this stage. Some of you may have particular careers in mind already. Others may not know a career but be much clearer about more general matters, perhaps working abroad or in finance or some other area. Some of our hopes may be simply trivial - a white Christmas - as in the song; some may have hopes they daren't admit out loud for fear of teasing, and some hopes are so important we tend to assume everybody holds them; things like fairness, freedom from abuse, freedom from prejudice, and so on. This week I want to follow the theme of Vision, thinking of issues in school life. But also I want to expand the horizon, to think of vision for the whole of life, not just the school part.

During the week I shall be speaking from a personal standpoint - I shall be saying things about which you can choose to agree or disagree, or change your mind or keep an open mind. I hope that what I say will be sufficiently thought-provoking to make some of you respond. I shall also be using one of Pascal's Pensés. Pascal was a French philosopher and mathematician. Amongst other writings he jotted down lots of short thoughts which, after his death, were collected into a book. One of these thoughts or Pensés connects the present with the future; it connects what we are now with what we hope we shall become. It goes like this "Man transcends man." "Man transcends man." It is so succinct it needs unpacking - a task for later in the week. Perhaps you might like to discuss what you think it means during the day.