Good evening, parents, colleagues, honoured guests, and most importantly, our wonderful Class of 2026.

It is an absolute honour and a profound pleasure to stand before you this evening. As the first speaker of the evening, I feel a deep sense of responsibility - not just to set the tone for this celebration, but to attempt to articulate the importance of what we are witnessing tonight.

This evening marks a milestone for the school, but on a deeply personal level, it marks a milestone for me as well. And this is because my history with the young people sitting at these tables goes back right to the very beginning.

Cast your minds back to August 2019. Think of the heat, the oversized uniforms, the nervous energy. Seven years ago, you walked through the gates of our school to begin Day One of Year Seven. You were taking your first brave, trembling steps into secondary school. And on that very same day, I walked through those exact same gates to begin my own journey as the Deputy Head of School.

We started together. We looked out at an unfamiliar landscape together. For the last seven years, we have shared the same hallways, navigated the same collective challenges, and grown alongside one another. I have watched you transform from hesitant children into the articulate, compassionate, and deeply impressive young adults sitting before me tonight. We have quite literally grown up together, and that makes this group forever unique to me.

Over those seven years, you have spent roughly 9,000 hours at our school. I have said to you many times in assembly that we owe it to you to ensure that those 9,000 hours mean a whole lot more than just an academic transcript. A school is not simply a factory for passing examinations; it is a human community. It is a nurturing environment where we learn how to coexist, how to fail safely, and how to build something better together.

Through what we call our Brilliant Basics, our mission has always been to prioritize your relational well-being and to cultivate an environment for sustainable living and learning. We have never measured your worth by raw talent or simple intelligence alone. Instead, we have sought to celebrate character: effort, commitment, perseverance, and resilience.

When your teachers wrote your university references over this past year, they were not just summarizing your grades. They were documenting the sum of your character. They were writing about your habits, your dispositions, your capacity to show up for others, and your willingness to lose with class and a determination to try your best next time. That is your real legacy.

As you prepare to step through the doorway of graduation into a world that is inherently complex and largely uncontrollable, I want to leave you with a final philosophical anchor that we have reflected on before.

The ancient philosophers understood that to navigate the world successfully, one must first navigate the self. Socrates famously advised his followers to care for their psyche - to truly know themselves. Centuries later, the Stoic philosopher Seneca practiced a daily review, asking himself: What bad habit did I curb? How am I better? Were my actions just? How can I improve?

If there is a superpower I hope you take from your time with us, it is this capacity to be clear-eyed and honest with yourselves about who you are - embracing both your magnificent strengths and your inevitable weaknesses. You cannot thoughtfully care for others, or constructively impact a changing society, if you do not first understand and care for yourself.

During your time here, we have sought to provide you with the ultimate human luxury: the space to simply Learn to Be. To be a person of growth, to reflect on your own ethical position, and to pour yourself fully and intentionally into the present moment. My predecessor, Toby Newton, taught me that we can never tell a young person how to do this; we can only help you find it in yourselves. Class of 2026, look around this room tonight. Look at the faces at your tables. You have found it in yourselves.

And so, we return to the phrase you have heard repeated year after year. As you step out into the world, my highest wish is that each of you continues to thrive as a happy, confident, intelligent warrior.

• To be happy and confident means being at peace with yourself, secure in your identity, and deeply rooted in the unconditional belonging you found here together.

• To be intelligent means understanding that intellect takes many forms - it is not a test score, but the capacity to be an alert observer of the world, making thoughtful, ethical decisions based on your context, the needs of your environment and the people around you.

• And to be a warrior? That is about bravery. It is about the grit to stand strong when adversity comes - because believe me, in the adult world, adversity will come. It is about gathering those around you, defending the vulnerable, and representing the very best of the human community.

You are equipped for this. You have balanced your personal interests with your responsibilities to one another, and you are ready to forge a new future.

I would like to thank and acknowledge Mr Martin Clarke and our Year 12 students Angeliki, Jasmine, Fafa, Damla, Matthew and Reeve for their organisation and arrangements in making this evening possible - you’ve done a fantastic job, and we are grateful. 

I must also acknowledge the remarkable team that has walked this 9,000-hour road with us. To our phenomenal teachers, over 30 of whom are here this evening, our dedicated Learning Support Assistants, and our tireless support staff: thank you for the hidden hours, the unwavering dedication, and the environment of profound care you provided for our graduates.

To our parents and families: thank you for trusting us with your most precious possessions seven years ago. And finally, to my fellow travellers, the Class of 2026. I am immensely proud of you. It has been the privilege of my professional life to grow alongside you. The world out there is waiting for you, and I am quietly confident that you are going to make it a better, more compassionate, and beautiful place.

As always, I leave you with our ultimate school rule, which matters just as much out there as it did in our classrooms:

Work hard. Be nice to each other. Look after yourselves. And best of luck for what promises to be an incredible journey ahead.