From the Head of Middle School

Can you have more than one winner in a race? Last week we ran our Inter-House Cross Country Carnival. The House Shield will record that Gordon House won the trophy and Tex Cross Year 6, Henry Feutrill Year 7 and Tane Hasler Year 8 all stood and received our applause for their great runs leading all in their year group to the finishing line. What the records will not show are the endeavours of the boys who ran near me, at the back of the field. Boys who find running physically hard, but through sheer determination, willpower and endurance, ran the entire distance, slowly, but without stopping, pushing on as it got harder and harder to eventually complete a distance they had not run before.

Many will see the Cross Country event just as a race and focus on the placing, or the number they get at the end. In some ways a bit like the ATAR. What we need to get better at is recognising the development of the attitudes, the mental capacity around self-belief and persistence and the transferability of these attitudes into other aspects of our academic, emotional and social lives as the really valuable placings from events such as Cross Country races, or even Year 11 & 12.

If I were to go into battle, start a new business, wanted to win a premiership or find a solution to a serious illness, the key attributes of the players I would recruit would be determination, persistence and a willingness to do my best for my team, no matter how long it took. People that do not look for excuses or the soft option. To the boys who ran their hearts out for their House, who produced a personal best, who pushed on rather than giving up when it got hard; congratulations, because regardless of your placing, if you did the best you could, in my eyes you were the winners too.

Mr Richard Ledger
Head of Middle School