Mrs Tear's Thoughts of the Week

As we draw close to the year end (despite just being back from Half Term!) a reflective mood ensues.

It has been a strange year, but much has been achieved and all the more credit given the challenges to overcome. Persevering with challenges has been a topic in the spotlight this week.

I enjoyed joining a webinar as part of the 8Billionideas ‘Unlocking Education’ series earlier this week in which the topic, ‘Can passion drive performance?' gave much food for thought. The educators, business leaders and an elite sportsperson around the table all gave valuable insights into just how it indeed does and central to that is the key figure, often a teacher, who lights the spark.

Following this on Thursday, our Celebration Sport guest speaker, Anyika Onuora, explained just how important passion was in driving herself through the myriad of challenges she met en route to achieve elite performance. Her story made it very clear that passion is central to sustaining the perseverance and practice needed to push yourself onwards towards your goals. I think it is always important to realise that people usually don’t just become elite performers, be it in physical pursuits, creative arts or even intellectually, they have committed to something and, often behind the scenes, committed hours, often over years, to achieve their goal.

We have many elite performances to celebrate this week alone, marking just how passionate and dedicated Badmintonians are: Mr Howarth and Lottie (Year 7) the winning pair in our Friendly Cup, Flora’s (Year 11) great placing in the Haslemere International Online String Competition 2021, Celeste’s (Year 7) success in Team Bath’s U14 Netball trials, Charlotte (Upper Sixth) and Isabella (Lower Sixth) in their LCM diplomas with flying colours and even the relentless kindness shown by Lilah in the Junior School in helping me find Mrs Taylor!

All these things, and so many more, made Badminton a great place to be inspired to keep going and, for me, something to feel very proud of - well done all.