taking responsibility

Sam has reached the sixth form. He will get top grades and his paper qualifications will be very impressive but almost as important is what he has learned outside the classroom – taking responsibility. He has been a key member of our CCF Royal Marine section. Younger cadets have looked to him for guidance and he has learned lessons that books cannot teach.

His friends have learned to take responsibility through different routes. Some have faced the perils of getting groups of 8-year old children to tackle tasks such as recreating in mime cathedrals, complete with flying buttresses, during drama workshops. Coaching juniors in rugby, hockey and cricket add to the opportunities to learn about leadership.

A recent letter in the local paper from an elderly woman, who had cut herself falling over a clumsily placed sculpture in the town centre, thanked the two girls who had picked her up from the ground, organised and paid for her taxi and then telephoned the hospital to see how she was. In the spirit of our founder Nathaniel Woodard who warned ‘ neither seek nor depend on the praises of men’ neither of the sixth formers left their name or that of the school. At King’s taking responsibility begins not at home but wherever it is needed.