The Record 2014 - 2015

special effort to do so, for they are wonderful. This week has been a week of academic sciences with some extraordinary presentations from the Shells and some seriously dangerous rocket cars in the Quad on Wednesday. All of these things add huge value to the lives of our pupils and help to make them far more impressive young men and women for the future – this is certainly part of what Howard Gardner was talking about in Five Minds - but we know that when these pupils are in their twenties – when they are 25 years old – it is their sense of moral value and ethical duty alongside their ability to deal with people that really will matter. On Saturday evening the boys of Tilly’s slept rough for our charity, SeeSaw (so far nearly £30,000 has been raised by the School this year). This whole week we have been hosting Bongai Mwanesa, Nikki Tambirayi and Caston Nzvenga who are being sponsored by Henry Chitsenga’s Such Hope charity (which we supported last year). A few weeks ago, Rev Tom Shaw organised an event in which 150 of our Fourth and Sixth Form pupils joined others from MCS and Cherwell to celebrate reading, and to encourage primary school pupils from Blackbird Leys to enjoy books. The event Readers Make Leaders was utterly inspiring for all and well worth watching on the pupil video channel – Teddies on Camera – created by Celia Hodgson and Casper Sunley in the Lower Sixth. Here at St Edward’s, our pupils, our staff and our parents – all of us here in this Big

Tent – should and do value each other as people for what we can each do… and we believe absolutely that we can all do great things. This is what the School is all about. As it is the 4th July I would end with an American story to illustrate the point I have been making. It is the true story of Bishop Bromley Oxnam of the Methodist Episcopal Church who was giving the annual Memorial Day address at the National Monument at Gettysburg. He ended his speech by reciting Lincoln’s famous address. After he had finished the words, which he thought he had done well, an old man made his way forward and said: “Son, you made an awful mess of Lincoln’s speech.” The Bishop replied “What do you mean? I didn’t miss a word of it – look at my notes.” The old man replied “I don’t need your notes; I know it by heart because I heard it the first time round.” The old man had obviously been present when Lincoln originally delivered the famous address. Slightly nonplussed the Bishop wanted to know what had been different – why he had made a mess of it – and the old-timer explained it this way: “Abe put his hands out over the people like a benediction and said, ‘That the government of the people , by the people , and for the people , should not perish from the earth.’ You got the words right, son, but you missed the message. You emphasized government; Lincoln talked about people.” At the heart of any school – and at the heart of this school in particular – are the people.

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