1990 Annual Report

beginning of 1989, Deputy-Principal of Somerville House. She brings to the position a wealth of experience and I am looking forward to working with her in the years ahead. Before I conclude, I would like to address a few remarks to those girls who are leaving this year at the end of twelve years of schooling. This segment of your life is only one small facet of the life-long process of education, and if you are going to make the most of the experiences that you have had, particularly during your secondary schooling, it is important that you recognise this. You are now ready to enter the adult world, where you will be required to make decisions for yourself and to come to terms with the implications of those decisions. We have tried to provide you with a challenging experience during your time at Grammar, which has provided you with the opportunity to experience wide and varied activities. We have also tried to encourage you to accept that nothing comes without hard work and that there is no place for mediocrity, and indeed, that there is nothing wrong with striving after excellence in whatever you do. The majority of you are now well-equipped to face your future adult lives in a positive and rewarding manner. To allow you to experience a rich and rewarding life you are going to need to use your intellect and knowledge to their fullest capacity, and to recognise that learning is a life-long process. You must accept, and indeed make the effort, to determine that you are going to remain open to this challenge, to be adaptable, to continue to grow in tolerance and understanding of the needs of others, and to develop a humility which will allow you to recognise that you are a only a small part of a wider community from which you can never be isolated. In a paper written three years ago for the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Colin Ball suggested that there are three educational "passports" necessary for individual success in the nineties. These are an academic passport, which is the traditional role of education, emphasising the development of literacy and numeracy, and the acquisition of knowledge to enable a person to play a worthwhile and self-fulfilling role in society; a vocational passport which focuses on education necessary for work, in a world of rapid technological change; and an enterprise passport which represents an additional educational role for most people. He perceives that an enterprising individual has "a positive, flexible and adaptable disposition towards change, seeing it both as inevitable, and as an opportunity rather than a problem. To approach change in this way, an enterprising individual demonstrates a security born of self-confidence, and assurance when dealing with insecurity, risks, difficulty and the unknown. An enterprising individual has the capacity to initiate creative ideas... to develop them, and to translate them into action in a vigorous and determined manner. An enterprising individual is able, even anxious, to take responsibility and is an effective communicator, negotiator, influencer, planner and organiser. An enterprising-individual is active, confident and purposeful, not passive, uncertain and dependent..."

We have helped you towards achieving your first passport, which in the years ahead will be extended. You are about to be provided with the opportunity to achieve the