Head's Blog | Each other | Embley School, a private school in Hampshire

As those of you familiar with this piece will know, it is the product of early morning reflections on the events of the week or things that have occurred to me in passing. This week, there has been a stunning array of stimuli with ample opportunity for musings - sensible or not. St Patrick’s Day (of course) has to get the ball rolling. I am sure many of you will be all too familiar with the fact that Patrick wasn’t Irish - though no one is more intimately identified with belonging to a group than Patrick to the Irish. His story is a tale for the age we are in. It seems likely he was from somewhere between Cornwall and west Wales, perhaps a Roman but his past is vague. Kidnapped into slavery he tended sheep on a bleak hillside significantly north form this author’s home (there are of course no bleak hills in Wexford). Having escaped to continental Europe, Patrick was called by God to return to the Irish and the rest, as they say, is history. Ireland’s call is of course an anthem that leans into this narrative unapologetically. Patrick's story is significant for me and for many like me.

For a very long time, the greatest export of Ireland didn’t come in a glass with a white top but as young men and women who went out into the world to make a living, build their futures and their lives. Patrick was a migrant (at first an unwilling migrant) that changed, but what never changed was his difference, his identity. He was among the Irish, one with us but never one of us. That’s just fine by me. He didn’t need to change; he did not and could not be less himself to fit in and we are all the better of it. In fact, there would be no St Patrick if he had chosen to negate himself to find kinship. His belonging was the richer because of his difference, his welcome was not that of pretence but of authenticity. As cultures come together, the very best are models of sharing and borrowing, an intermingling of which John Ford in the 1950s film ‘The Searchers’ plays out with all of the attendant angst and wariness. But it need not be so. In its best form, as we see played out daily in school, the values we share are embraced by us all and we are united the more deeply because of the differences we have, not in spite of them.
 
Wednesday saw these values brought to life out on the playing fields of Ealing. I spoke with the coaches and wrote to them on this very point. The unity on display in the U15 team, our national bowl champions, was around shared values; shared principles. The team and indeed the coaching staff are all very different; it should be that way. Homogeneity is all well and good in diary products, but it is the antithesis of human interaction. The wonderful diversity is held by a common humanity and the values of belonging: cooperation and appreciation. We depend on each other and in leaning into that shared experience we are the stronger. This was evident in the interplay between backs and forwards, in the pivotal connection between the scrum half and the wing. As legs tired and energy sapped, the collective call to press on and hold the advantage was palpable. Each one the guardian of the other, no one left behind and no one exposed without cover. It was a tactical tour de force and a spirited one.
 
We are all full of congratulations for them and for all who take to the field for Embley in whatever discipline or shape the field may take. It seems to me that there is much this bunch can and will teach the world. Their success is outstanding, joyous and fills the community with pride. Their humility, honesty and drive stewarded by their coaches to a heady mix won the day and many days before. Silverware will come and go, that’s life. But they are the custodians of something of far greater value. In a world in flux, surrounded by change, they have their values, their purpose and they have each other.