The Nutshell w/e 26th June

Dear Parents

This year started with an assembly involving a coat hanger and two dirty running trainers, and is ending with an assembly involving a table hand bike (have you ever seen one?). It has been quite a journey.

So, what has the 2025-26 academic year looked like for me?

It has been my tenth year as Head of Hazelwood, and in September I was in the best running shape of my life. I was enjoying long runs and extensive woodland walks and feeling incredibly grateful for what my body could do. Fast forward to the end of the year and I have found myself relearning different ways of getting that endorphin high. Yes, chair aerobics is an actual thing! It also turns out that being an exercise enthusiast with a fractured foot is not particularly unusual.

I will be honest; I allowed myself a few days of intense sulking, but then I remembered something we ask of our pupils all the time. We ask them to be resilient, to bounce forward, not to become fixed in their thinking and to keep looking for possibilities, even when things do not go to plan.

So, I went looking for the eighteenth camel.

If you remember our assembly from earlier in the year, the eighteenth camel was all about perspective and finding a way forward when things seem impossible. Sometimes the solution is not immediately obvious. Sometimes it arrives in a form we would never have expected. Sometimes it requires us to think differently, ask for help, or simply accept that the route may need to change.

And here we are at the end of another academic year.   

A year that, for me, has required compassion, courage and a healthy respect for how life can surprise us. A year that has reminded me that whilst we cannot control everything that happens to us, we can choose our response. We can choose our thoughts, our attitude and our actions. We can choose to look for the eighteenth camel.

If I do not see you between now and the final day of term, have a wonderful summer.

Lindie

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