Well done to all our prize winners and many thanks to our Guest of Honour, Colonel Julian Salusbury, from The Welsh Guards, for his inspiring words on Character and Leadership:

"The great Field Marshall, Lord Slim, wrote 'Leadership is just plain you.' I have never found a better definition.            
When you look at your school motto alongside that definition, they are saying exactly the same thing, 'Heart speaks to heart.' Leadership is just plain view. Both remind us that true leadership isn't a performance. It isn't a persona that you put on like a coat. It isn't about sounding impressive, having the right job title or being the loudest voice in the room. Rank and authority may persuade people to obey your orders, but they will never persuade people to trust you. Trust is earned much more quietly than that, one conversation at a time; one promise kept; one mistake owned; one difficult decision faced; one small act of kindness. In the end, leadership isn't about what you know, it's about who you are."  

Real leadership requires immense strength of character, but that strength is forged in remarkably ordinary dayto-day decisions long before the storm hits. It's keeping your word; it's turning up prepared; it's owning your mistakes rather than passing the blame; it's treating people fairly, especially when you are under stress; it's doing the difficult right when the easier wrong would let you walk away. These are small, seemingly insignificant decisions until, one day, they aren't. People will follow who they trust, and trust will still be built exactly as it always has been since the dawn of history - quietly, authentically, one day at a time, which brings me back to where I started: Leadership is just plain you. Not the uniform, not the office, not the post-nominals or the titles after your name. Just you. The choices you make when no one is watching. The standards you refuse to compromise on. The way you treat people from all walks of life. 

None of us know exactly what the future will bring, but every single one of us gets to decide what sort of person we're going to become. So, wherever life takes you from this beautiful place, become someone people can trust. May you lead with courage. May you lead with kindness. And may you always quietly remember that leadership is just plain you." 

Cor ad Cor Loquitur