My Shout
Sing Leopards Sing… breathe
I met and briefly chatted with Robert Masters, the Head of Judd School in Tonbridge, at Skinners Day held last month which is the prize giving and a day of celebration for my son’s school The Skinners School.
Now at this particular event even Robert wouldn’t have minded the hissing that the mere mention of Judd School received at the event. You see Judd and Skinners, being sister schools, are arch rivals in sport and every other competitive occasion at which they encounter each other. All very friendly rivalry, you understand but, nonetheless, serious stuff when you understand a little of the culture of these two great schools.
Earlier in the proceedings The Head of Skinners School, Simon Everson, had expressed his deep pride in his boys, his Leopards, as he ran through their long list of achievements, both academic and sporting, over the past year.
It was his opening comment though that really struck me; he said that we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us. I’m sure that Simon wouldn’t mind at all me borrowing this lovely quote as; after all, he’d borrowed it from Winston Churchill who one or two of you may have heard of!
Initially Simon was applying this sentiment to the newly opened sports centre at Skinners but remarked that it also applied to the school in a much wider sense. Quite true I’d say and it has certainly been true of my son Charlie who is about to embark on his own studies and a career in medicine. That lovely old, some might say, rather ominous looking building on theSt. Johns Road, as well as the countless people who have walked its corridors has certainly played its part in shaping my son and his contemporaries.
To hear words and phrases that day like Skinners family, pride, sense of belonging, continuity, companionship, high achievement, setting standards high reinforced in me the differences in attitudes that can give some young people the belief and opportunity to strive to do well in life. It’s not like me to be quoting Latin but I just couldn’t say it better than this so, in the words of the school’s Leopards’ Song: “Floreat Sodalitas, ‘dalitas Pardorum.” Let fellowship flourish, the fellowship of The Leopards and “.… while the merry world goes round, The School may stand forever.” Sing Leopards Sing….Breathe. Now if only every school could be like Skinners.
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