Headmaster's

Message

Lessons about Life!

This last weekend for the Grammar Community was filled with sport, fancy functions on Coorah Lawn and spectacular performances of Matilda the Musical by our Junior School students, under the leadership of Mr Forbes and Mrs Cooney. I am a strong advocate for the Performing Arts because of the life lessons our young people glean from them; however the same can be said of Sport.  

As the thronging crowd waited for the BMGS First Fifteen to emerge from the changerooms on Saturday, we heard the guttural chant of unity, focus and commitment so characteristic of Rugby teams. This character persisted for the whole match regardless of the score-line; a trait that, each and every week, makes spectators proud of our sporting teams. Our Rugby teams ended the day with a draw and two losses but, as one parent reflected to me, the real win is in the character that sport nurtures in our young people; a character that leaches from the coaches, into the team, and ultimately into the individual. Of course, it is not just character that sport nurtures; it also grows self-awareness and the awareness of how our actions fit with the functioning of our team and that of our opposition. 

Many lessons take their root during the period of reflection that happens after a match. A process beautifully supported by the BMGS coaching staff. So, as I watched on after one of Saturday’s Rugby matches, as the teams lay on the grass exhausted, adrenaline levels reducing and the pain of many collisions increasing, the experienced coaches encouraged and commended their charges and gently referenced the lessons they will draw out in more detail in the mid-week coaching session to come. Some lessons however, are only realised in the moment or immediately thereafter and so, in most sports, reflection occurs on the run. 

On Sunday, at a School function, I had the pleasure of a hoop or two of Croquet with some Year 11 students and their parents. I had always thought of Croquet as a cross between Golf and Billiards (or Snooker or Pool). Like Golf, groups consist of four players who each hit a ball at a hole, in this case a vertical hole called a hoop. Like Billiards, players must block opponents and knock their balls away from the hoop. However, Croquet has one other similarity to Billiards that makes it unique. 

Unlike Golf, in Croquet balls are played where they lie throughout the match. There is no setting up for the perfect shot on the next tee. Again, unlike Golf, only one player scores through the hoop before every player refocuses on the next. So, like Billiards, the player who scores must consider where they leave their ball so as to provide them with an advantage in the next phase of the game. This feature of the game prepares young people to consider how their current actions will impact their next; one very important life-lesson. Meanwhile, the three non-scoring players who had their minds fixed on one goal, now have a completely new objective and have to make do with their current circumstance as their starting point. This too is a great lesson for young people to learn.

As the adults in our young people’s lives, we too must encourage and commend them as we seek to grow in them the capacity to reflect on the run. As they learn to do so, we must coach in them an increasing self-awareness, as well as an awareness of how their actions fit with those of their family, friends and classmates, as well as those they consider opponents. Finally, we must help them learn to consider how their current actions will impact their next and, when the goalposts of life are shifted, how to make do with their current circumstance as the starting point for a completely new goal.

Some of these skills are foundational to the adaptability at the centre of our vision for our students; a vision for strong, flexible people with the resilience to flourish in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

Mr Ian Maynard

Headmaster