Head Master’s Welcome

Welcome

from the Head Master

One thing I firmly believe must be central to the life of all pupils at Wells Cathedral School is that they are happy and successful, but in that order. In line with our ethos of supporting pupils to become the best they can be, we work hard every day to ensure pupils can be as successful as they possibly can be in all areas of their school lives - including those areas where they might not have an immediate enthusiasm! And I hope that this edition of In Touch once again demonstrates just how many opportunities are available for pupils and just how successful they have been in so many varied areas in recent months.

But important though success is, it is nothing unless it is founded on happiness. Indeed, unless a pupil is truly happy they can’t aspire to be truly successful.

There are so many ways that we strive as a School to ensure we can support pupils to be happy, and this has been a core part of a ‘Wells education’ for many, many years. But society’s concern for happiness and wellbeing has increasingly come into focus, and most especially in the aftermath of the pandemic. So that’s one of the reasons we have an explicit focus on pupil and staff wellbeing. It’s not that this is a ‘new’ approach for the School, but rather it’s an area of our provision which we particularly want to highlight, review, challenge and improve. To this end, we have launched an Annual Fund to help finance some specific wellbeing resources for pupils. We will be embarking on a wellbeing award accreditation in the new academic year. And we have chosen to use this edition of In Touch to signal our existing commitment to wellbeing as a school community, and of our aspiration to do even more. While the term ‘wellbeing’ might seem like a particularly ‘modern’ expression, the word actually first emerged in the English language in the 16th century. So like society as a whole, our School’s concern for wellbeing is not new - but it’s timely and right that we place renewed focus on this area of school life. But in so doing, we mustn’t think that we have to necessarily do things differently, or afresh, in order to promote the wellbeing of the whole community. Martin Seligman, the American psychologist and a strong promoter of positive psychology, suggests wellbeing consists in having positive emotions, being engaged in an activity, having good relationships with other people, finding meaning in one's life and a sense of accomplishment in the pursuit of one's goals.

With that in mind, I commend to you all most warmly this edition of In Touch which highlights so vibrantly all the things Wellensians have been doing recently to support and promote positive wellbeing in its broadest and most healthy sense.