In Senior School on 26 February 2025, we welcomed pupils into the Bushell Hall to the strains of ‘We are the Champions’ by Queen ahead of a thought-provoking address by the Head of the Senior School Mr Morgan, on what it means to not only become not only how to become a champion – but also the importance of championing a cause or community you feel passionate about.

We encourage all our pupils to be upstanders, not bystanders - devoting time to volunteering as well as speaking up in support of issues, communities, or individuals they feel strongly about.

The World and Olympic champion triathlete Alistair Brownlee said recently that champions are made when no one is watching, and Mr Morgan asked pupils to think about the personal effort they put into their individual passions and talents in their own time, noting that every single one of them has the potential to achieve extraordinary success, and there is simply no substitute for sheer hard work and tenacity in getting there - be it the scholar who reads voraciously around their subject, the athlete who trains daily even in the rain, the debater who exhaustively researches and refines their arguments, or the chess player who studies previous games to find opportunities to improve.

There’s a reason why the school motto is Perseverantia – we prize effort above all else, because we know it leads to amazing results for our pupils.

The assembly concluded with a celebration of some of our own champions, including Molly and Ryan (England U17s Hockey) and Ali (Great Britain U15 Squash) who all represented their country recently and have been added to the Solihull Borough Sporting Honours board.