3
-
I believe that your Headmistress and your staff will have taught
you much about leaders and leadership in the contemporary world. Their team
work, their inspiring example should guide you. The world outside is a great
deal less well-organised than the smaller world in here, I am sorry to tell
you, but the disciplines you have learnt here will help you make your mark
out there. You have learned to work hard and to play hard. Your books are
full of knowledge; and I know that your teachers have taught you that what is
important is not so much what you know but how you know it. The many extra-
curricular activities which are open to you will also have taught you that
knowledge is something rather more than book learning, important though
this is. Getting on with people is at least as important as getting on
with History or Geography or English or Mathematics. Serving your school
and your school mates is as important as serving your community.
Now I speak to the prize-winners and equally to those who did
not win prizes. I have just pointed to the fact that not everybody can be
first, second or third. Nor can anyone be first, second or third all their
lives all the time. The important thing is to work hard, to do your best:
I am sure all of you have done that. Of course, the prize-winners deserve
special congratulations but I am sure they will be the first to admit that
what they have got most from the school is not only a prize or a certificate.
They have had the opportunity to learn that hard work is its own reward.
Every one of you is well aware, I know, that you are privileged to be a part
of DGS.
Today, Mrs Symons has mentioned especially the Government's
intention that our whole education system should be reviewed in 1981:
I regard this as being of particular importance and would like to comment
.briefly on it. Of course,
we are all familiar are we not? with the
many and various Green and White Papers which have been produced over the
past few years! we have reviewed, debated at great length, and adopted
/development.....