Margaret Laurence loved school. She once wrote “Holidays are enticing only for the first week or so. After that, it is no longer such a novelty to rise late and have little to do.”
If any of our students had that novelty over the past week, it’s officially over as, happily, The Academy is back in session for a new school year. I’m going to go out on what really isn’t much of a limb and predict our greatest school year in the history of The Academy.
The summer was remarkably busy for us. Applications and inquiries were at an all-time high. By the time the dust settles, our enrolment may surpass our best mark ever. The quality of new applicants we have seen has been amazing. We have a full school of mission-appropriate students and families. We are happy and energized for a new school year.
There is a Buddhist proverb: “When the student is ready, the master appears.” That’s the feeling here today. One of preparedness, anticipation. I sometimes think it cliche when people talk about education itself as a journey. I see it as a series of beginnings. Some are in a classroom and some are out in the world (or even in an intersection of the two). Each of these beginning is a checkpoint in the notion of a larger journey of one’s education. And, of course, for something to begin something else must end. So as we bid farewell to this summer, we do so with an eye on the amazing things to come this year.
I want to thank everyone in our community for being so prepared to accept this beginning. Watching the students and teachers today reinforces what a special place The Academy is. So, for another school year, off we go!
Don Adams, Head of School