All the experts (and there are many) who offer Careers advice suggest that our working lifetime will be 80,000 hours. Having now completed 48 years at work now, I can conservatively estimate I have completed some 120,000 hours to date, and I’ve good plans to stay at work for 2024, God willing. I returned to work this year on 2 January, a tad premature it must be said, but the weather was dreadful, so resting indoors, I found myself listening to that great old friend, Radio 4, and caught up with a current programme entitled Seven Deadly Psychologies, this broadcast being the last in the series on ‘Sloth‘. I quote from the Wikipedia entry:

“Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teachings. It is the most difficult sin to define and credit as sin, since it refers to an assortment of ideas, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and conditional states.[1] One definition is a habitual disinclination to exertion, or laziness.[2][better source needed] Views concerning the virtue of work to support society and further God’s plan suggest that through inactivity, one invites sin: “For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” (“Against Idleness and Mischief” by Isaac Watts).

The half hour I spent listening was very well invested, not least because as I return from a 2 week break from work, I have mixed feelings – reluctant because vacation and the Christmas break have gone really well, yet inspired by the down-time to neverthless get cracking on the plans I have for the year ahead. BBC website summarises today’s content as follows and I commend the programme to anyone with 28 minutes to spare – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001trml.

“Sloth is, unsurprisingly, the final sin of the series. Lethargic, languid, lazy old sloth. Such sluggishness is often caused by a lack of dopamine, the neurochemical that helps drive motivation and movement. And it’s not always a bad thing. Our brains and bodies need rest in order to recharge, perhaps especially in today’s world of hyper-productivity and stimulation. But too much sloth, and you can get stuck in a downward spiral of apathy or depression. How best can we get ourselves out of a slump? And how can we get the balance right between uptime and downtime?“

So, that rather sets the record straight, I have taken suitable rest. recovered from the exertions of 2023 and now move from one of the 7 deadly sins to the one of the 3 major virtues, that being Hope. As it happens, the other 2 great virtues are absolutely vital too, being Faith and Love. Faith covers trust and confidence in others, which I have to have because without that a school simply can’t function. Love is the greatest of the 3, because is is the catalyst that enables Faith and Hope, creating unbreakable relationships, be they in families or friends, and more than that provides incentives for the future for the wider community at large.

But why we need Hope at the start of the ‘New Year’ is because it provides the optimistic mindset that makes the first step into the future possible. As I walked into school on Monday, along with all other pupils and staff at the time, it was distinctly noticeable that our stride lengthened and pace quickened. By the time assembly started 30 minutes later school was not just back in session, but its collective heart was beating and excitement pervaded the atmosphere. As I complete the week, walking to the gate at the close, footballers, rowers, scholars and friends were all leaving with cu han obvious skip in their collective steps – school was back, their purposes galvanised once more and stories to share over the well deserved weekend ahead.

Hope though is not enough, and works best when it is underpinned with meticulous planning and the unwavering nerve to ensure that things get done. I am very conscious of the need to ensure our many plans for school, including new car parking, buildings and opportunities are delivered in a timely manner. I’m conscious, as much in writing these words as notes for bulletins and the like, that sometimes I have to wait for other pieces of the planning jigsaw which are not in my care. Last month we we required to provide surfaced for our planning application for a new multi-user games area (MUGA) for juniors (like the surfaces we have at Senior Boys and Girls) an Ecological Survey to support the application. This is a document that runs to 85 pages and highlights of course the vital importance we need to attach to ensuring the biodiversity of the area is maintained as well as the insufferable complexity of planning in the C21 which slows almost everything we want to do and adds utterly unnecessary costs to such projects. After all, since we are enabling an area than half a football pitch (0.2 acre) to become all weather in an estate of 60 acres in which we have recently planted 5000 trees and surrounded by a further 600 acres of Thicket and natural chalk landscape, this kind of requirement is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

To conclude, some time in the next few weeks we should receive approval for our various new projects for 2024, including MUGA, new music and food studios at Senior Boys. My intention remains to provide the best and most diverse set of opportunities we can for our children and families of course, whilst keeping the most eagle of eyes on what new threats and challenges might be lying ahead too. I am not impressed at all by the growing threats form the Labour party to tax our tuition fees, and the failure to appreciate our parents have already paid full taxes and dues to provide for a state sector place for their child which they have chosen not to take up! Integral to our plans to mitigate such threats is to continue to be a central part of the local landscape in East Berks and South Bucks, and to ensure our local towns and villages appreciate how important it is that Claires Court is nourished in return. We are the home for so many groups now, rowing, football, cricket and such like, and reliable partners too for sailing, golf, rugby, hockey and netball, creating the future by sharing our good – onwards into 2024!