To the class of 2025 - congratulations to you all.

It is an absolute honour to address you all. This evening marks a time of celebration and reflection, the end of one chapter and the exhilarating start of another for you all.

Throughout your 9,000 hours at secondary school, what we have sought to provide you with is an experience of achievement and growth over time, a school experience that wherever possible reflected your habits, dispositions and interests, not just as learners, but as friends, teammates, collaborators, and members of the ICHK community. And, we have invited you to join us on this journey, a journey in developing a set of personal qualities that will work in support of you in a world and future filled with promise and uncertainty. 

It started and has continued with a set of values that you now know well. These values seek to support the growth of a young person as someone who recognises that effort, commitment, perseverance and resilience, rather than simple ‘intelligence’ or ‘talent’, will lead to the achievement of a goal. It’s about supporting a young person who is committed to personal growth, who is open to the ideas and perspectives of others and who is resilient in the face of adversity, because adversity will come. And then there is the commitment to supporting other people, because leadership is based on our capacity to unleash the potential of those around us, and realising this requires a shift in focus from personal accomplishments to enabling the success of others. Growth mindset, courage in learning, support for others.

Happy confident intelligent warriors. The happy person who understands who they are and who they are not. The confident person: sure of their values, understanding their direction of travel, with an accurate and honest opinion of themselves, believing that the people around them, whoever they are, are as worthy as them. An intelligent person can read the room, is thoughtful, can measure their response to what’s happening around them. And a warrior has courage, is a person who represents and defends the values of their community.

Toby has provided you with a quote this evening, and I would like to provide you with one as well. I have a book on my desk titled ‘The Daily Stoic’, and what it provides is a piece of wisdom, read daily, from the writing of the ancient stoic philosophers, people such as Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.

The title for May 23rd, today’s passage, is ‘Show Me How to Live’. The piece of wisdom is from Seneca, and it was written about 2000 years ago.

“Show me that the good life does not consist in its length, but in its use, and that it is possible, no, entirely too common, for a person who has lived a long life to have lived too little.”

As you move through life, pay attention to the people around you, because one day you’ll meet someone and think: “If I could do half of what they did, I would consider my life well lived.” The reading for today suggests that perhaps the best way to live that life is by focusing on what is here right now, on the task we have at hand, big or small, by really seeing the people at the tables around us, by noticing and by pouring ourselves fully and intentionally into the present. 

And this is apt, because what we have ultimately sought to cultivate through our shared values, programmes and experiences is simply learning to Be. To be a person of growth and self-awareness, who reflects on one’s own ethical position, of spiritual engagement and connection to our world. 

Our reality, and therefore our world, is inherently complex, and the world is a largely uncontrollable place. But I am quietly confident that, through applying the wisdom you’ve gained, you are well-positioned to thrive in the world out there. Everything I’ve just talked about, we’ve never been able to tell you to do it, during your time at ICHK, we could only ever try to help you find it in yourselves, and then it's down to you.

So now, from this point, it really is up to you - I wish you the very best. 

Thank you.