Remembrance is one of those rare moments in the school year when time seems to slow. In a community that rightly values progress and forward momentum, it is important to pause, to look back, and to recognise the threads that connect us to those who came before. Ceremony and tradition may sometimes feel at odds with modern life, yet they hold a quiet power. They remind us that permanence and reflection have as much to teach us as innovation and change.
This year, our Remembrance Ceremony was led by Year 9, whose recent visit to the battlefields of Ypres and the surrounding Salient shaped both the tone and theme of our commemoration: Lessons from the Past. For me, that trip marked my twentieth visit to Ypres, yet each time I have visited those sites I have found and felt something new and different. The landscape may be familiar, but the experience always changes through the company, the weather, the questions asked, and perhaps most of all, the way we listen. There is a stillness in those moments that is increasingly rare in the world we inhabit and within the pace of life in school.
That same contemplative calm was present in Tuesday’s ceremony. The girls’ reflections, drawn from their time in Belgium, were thoughtful, personal and strikingly mature. Mili spoke of the paradox of sharing her birthday with Remembrance Day, and how the trip helped her reconcile the tension between celebration and solemnity. Delilah described standing among the white headstones of Tyne Cot, imagining the unnamed lives they represented, and in doing so, reminding us of the human story behind the statistics.
Their words captured the true purpose of remembrance: not simply to honour the past, but to learn from it. As Delilah concluded so eloquently, remembrance is not only about looking back; it is about recognising what those soldiers fought for — freedom, hope and the possibility of peace for future generations. In that spirit, we remember not only with sorrow, but with gratitude and a renewed sense of responsibility to live and learn well in the peace they secured for us.
Among many poignant moments during the ceremony was a poem written and read by Isabel R, inspired by her time in Belgium. It was a moving reminder of one generation reflecting on, and speaking to, their respect for another.
Ben Turner, Senior Deputy Head
The Soul of a Soldier
by Isabel R – Year 9
Their guns have slept, but echoes stay
in the shattered fields where poppies sway.
The morning rays let down their beams,
yet cannot awake forgotten dreams.
They dreamed of home and distant years,
but found the cost in blood and tears.
Their souls so young, now ash remains,
a faded scar on the landscape retains.
Now peace has come, yet I still find
the war lives on within my mind.
Though the sound of battle no longer cry,
we will never forget how they died.
At Ypres where solemn trumpets sound,
a silence softly wraps the ground.
We place our hands on cold stone,
of unnamed graves, yet not alone.
Our touch will let their spirits know,
that we remember and won’t let go.
Their souls are lifted slightly higher,
above the poppies that burn a gentle fire.
