Dear Parents

I hope that you have happy memories of and enjoyable time with your families over Christmas and that your children have returned to school happily. I asked the children at Good Work Assembly last week: ‘Who is pleased to be back at school?’ and every hand seemed to shoot straight up. If I had regrets about the holiday being over, that response served to dispel that thought quickly.

One of the many seasonal pleasures in January is the chance to sit with some of the older children for a practice interview ahead of a senior school assessment. Amongst other things, I’m always keen to know which stories they have picked up from the news and, at the moment, the exploits of the Westminster government or the world’s number 1 tennis player seem first to be mentioned. Some of the children comment – in line with most media sources - on the consequences of breaking the rules while others focus on the importance of telling the truth. And I wonder if the latter point isn’t the most important?

Either way, it is always easier to do the right thing when you know you are being observed. C.S. Lewis is supposed to have said that integrity is ‘doing the right thing even when no-one is looking’. Do we follow the rules because we believe in them or because we are frightened of being caught? How often have I asked someone in a classroom to own up to an unseen misdemeanour only for everyone to sit tight (not this week – a hand went up, straight and true – hurrah!) I have certainly found this an interesting personal challenge at the start of a new calendar year.

Our start of term reading is from St Paul and he puts in another way: “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure…if there be any virtue think on these things”.

Tonight, we will be celebrating our Burns supper with Form 8: another event that we missed last year. In amongst good food, good company, inspiring words and music (and perhaps some extravagant dancing) we might reflect that Robert Burns was rarely a man who worried about sticking to the letter of the law. Nonetheless, he never seemed to be frightened of speaking the truth as he saw it. I hope that is an example we are all able to set.

As always, you can keep up to date with things here at Cargilfield by following our various social media channels which are constantly updated; the links to these are at the bottom of this newsletter. Our news page on the website is updated daily and can be accessed here.

Rob Taylor