I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays, and welcome back for 2026 – I hope you have a really good term, and indeed a good year.
Over the holidays, as is often the way, UK TV showed programmes and films that have been around for some time. Christmas seems to provide an opportunity to bring out the old favourites and show them once again. An example of this was the film – or indeed films – Back to the Future. First released 40 years ago, the film featured a DeLorean sportscar that had been skilfully converted into a time machine. Operation was relatively simple: program the year you fancy, drive to a speed in excess of 88 mph, and the car instantly takes the passengers to the selected date – past or future.
Around Christmas I caught part of one of the Back to the Future films in which the car and its passengers travelled forward in time to 2015 – obviously for us, 11 years ago. The future imagined in 2015 was an exciting place: there were flat-screen televisions, video calling, drones, and smart-watch-like technology. But the future 2015 also had flying cars, hoverboards, and self-drying clothes – which we are yet to enjoy … and there was a complete absence of smartphones. Accurately predicting how life will be in the future is far from easy.
Thousands of years ago, in ancient Babylon – located in what is now modern-day Iraq – the start of the New Year was celebrated, though not necessarily in January, as a time of renewal, reflection, and hope for the future – whatever that might bring. Promises were made to secure good fortune and make a fresh start. Later, the Romans fixed the new year as 1st January, linking it to Janus, the god of beginnings, who looked both backward and forward, again with the idea of a new start.
If we celebrated the New Year at the end of last week, perhaps we too resolved to make small changes in how we go about our day-to-day lives – perhaps to exercise more, use our phones or social media less, or simply to make better use of the time and opportunities available. Perhaps the end of 2025 symbolised the end of one chapter, and the start of 2026 is the beginning of a new optimistic and exciting one where we’ll do things a little better.
And, as Back to the Future’s prediction of 2015 illustrated, some of what we will face over the coming months is easy to foresee: we know when our exams will take place, when that competition will be and when we may go on holiday and with whom.
Equally, the next twelve months will also bring unexpected opportunities and challenges. Some will be within our control, while others will not, and it is in those moments that our values matter most. Approaching the year with kindness towards others - and ourselves - , with resilience when things do not go to plan, and with the confidence to take opportunities when they present themselves will shape our experience far more than any timetable or calendar. A new year invites us not just to look ahead – knowing that we know some of what is coming – but also to decide how we will meet whatever it brings, be that new people, new challenges, or new opportunities… most likely all of them.
You will be able to decide for yourself whether you agree with this, but someone once said that as regards the choices ahead of us and expectations all around, it is worth remembering that the only people we really need to please are ourselves at eight and ourselves at eighty.
No one sitting here this morning is as young as eight, or quite as old as eighty, so if that statement is true, we need to remember …and look forward. At eight, many of us were filled with curiosity; we were honest and straightforward, with big hopes for what life might become, and less fear of failure or worry about what others might think. I don’t know, because we are not at that stage yet, but my guess is that in 2090 for some of the Lower Fourth Form, and a little sooner for the rest of us, our eighty-year-old selves will be most pleased to know that we have lived our lives with kindness, courage, and purpose, made a positive difference, and taken all the opportunities we could. And I hope our eight- and eighty-year-old selves - are proud with the choices and approach we took… and so are the other important people in our lives too.
But we’re no longer eight, and not yet eighty. For now, we can simply be the best versions of ourselves we can – today, tomorrow and so on. Have a really happy and successful 2026!