At the beginning of term, Mrs Poyner, Deputy Head (Pastoral), spoke to our pupils about the Lionesses and how they responded in their moment of loss both at the World Cup final and afterwards. She spoke about their upset and disappointment, but also of their determination to carry on and look forward to future success. 

I built on this theme in a recent assembly when I talked about life when things don’t go to plan.   

Many of you will have heard the familiar saying: ‘life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain’. And this week, there’s been plenty of opportunity to dance in the rain in Hampton! For all of us, there will be metaphorical ‘weather’ in our lives. Sometimes we’ll be lucky, and we’ll enjoy bright days of sunshine, when everything goes according to plan, sometimes for long stretches. At other times, the skies will be a bit grey and, every so often, there will be a major storm, and something will happen so that life looks very different to the way we imagined it.  

I recently listened to a talk by James Peach, who has worked with some of the most successful brands in the tech and consumer goods industries, from Vinted and Innocent Drinks to Google and Uber. He also completed a lap of the world on bicycle, cycling more than 41,000 kilometers across 38 countries. It was while cycling across Arizona that he visited an experiment where they created an enclosed dome (known as a biosphere) which contained a number of different habitats. The aim of this experiment is to learn about how the planet’s systems operate, hopefully leading to solutions for the challenges of climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development. While visiting he also learnt that the trees that grew in ‘biospheres’ were not as tall as trees in the natural environment, and this seemed odd. 

What the scientists found was very interesting. The trees inside the biosphere grew much quicker than those outside of the dome but they only ever reached a certain height and would then fall and die prematurely. When they investigated the reasons for this, they found the key thing missing in the trees’ environment was stress – in this case, strong wind, which encouraged the roots to grow deeper. 

It’s an important analogy for life. A lack of stress in trees meant they never reached their full biological potential – they didn’t get as tall, and their roots were less broad and deep, causing them to fall and die. While we dream of life being straight forward, often it is the things that challenge us that make us grow stronger – just like the trees in Arizona.  

Sometimes the winds that blow are outside of our control and caused by external factors that can be hard to predict. Now, with a few decades of life experience, I can look back on moments and events that were tough and difficult and realise that if these things had not happened, I wouldn’t have grown or become who I am today. 

But, of course, sometimes there are really big storms. They might be as likely to topple us over as not having any weather in our lives at all. How do we cope with those? Our roots cling to the soil and, for most of us, that’s our family and our friends, our hobbies and interests, our sports and music, our special places and pets. The roots in our lives are our biggest champions and protectors when we face stormy times. 

Although we are early into the school year, some of us may have already experienced some adverse weather, especially when adapting to a new school or new year group, or when thinking about university choices and life beyond LEH. Life can be tough sometimes, and although I hope that this year will be full of many happy times, my message to you all is that overcoming the challenges we face – the equivalent of the wind for the trees – can lead to personal growth that we might not otherwise achieve. 

By Mrs Cole - Head Mistress of LEH School