A very warm welcome back to all of you, and a special welcome to those who are joining the Channing community for the first time. I hope you have all enjoyed a restful and invigorating summer break and are ready to embrace the academic year ahead. We certainly are! It has been lovely to see so many of you at our Welcome Evenings for Years 7, 10 and 12 this week, and I look forward to seeing Years 9 and 11 next week, with Year 8 the week after.

The energy around school has been palpable this week and I am particularly impressed with the way in which the girls are navigating our restricted school site as the building work enters its final phase. We witnessed an historic moment on Monday afternoon when Miss Ni’Man, Head of Design and Technology, taught our very first D&T lesson on the Senior School site to a Year 8 class. This is an important milestone for us and a key commitment in our development of STEM across the school. We are looking forward to moving into our newly refurbished and extended Brunner House Science building – you will certainly be hearing more about that in due course.

At our opening assembly on Tuesday morning this week, we gathered to mark the beginning of the new year. I took the opportunity to remind everyone, and explain to our new pupils and staff, the significance of the different elements of our assemblies, and reflect on what makes Channing such a special and nurturing place.

Traditions
We always start assembly by lighting the chalice, a beautifully carved wooden representation of the Unitarian symbol of the chalice and flame. This was a gift to the school from the congregation of the Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel in Hampstead, with whom we have strong links. Unitarian congregations all over the world light a candle at the start of their services to represent their unity and it’s a tradition we are glad to follow at Channing too.

We also sing a hymn at the start of assembly. Whatever our faith, or none, the power of communal singing is proven. As I said to the girls on Tuesday morning, there is a joy in singing together as a group, no matter what we are singing, and the endorphins produced by doing so make it a great start to the day. Our older teens may need a little encouragement to get involved but the combined voices of the whole Senior School certainly make a wonderful noise!

10% Braver
In thinking about what makes Channing special, I started back in 1885 when our founders, the Sharpe sisters and the Reverend Spears, gave us our school motto: Conabor (I shall try). If you have been part of the Channing community for a while, you will know that I often speak about the concept of being 10% Braver, which fits so well with this founding principle. It is a message I return to repeatedly because research and experience consistently show that girls and young women can be held back by fear: fear of not being good enough, fear of making a mistake, fear of what others might think. Our goal is to train girls from day one to lean into that fear rather than shy away from it.

Being 10% braver isn’t about reckless courage; it’s about asking oneself: “If I were just 10% braver, could I put my hand up in class? Could I commit an answer to paper without checking it first? Could I speak to someone new, or try out that new club?” When girls ask themselves that question, the answer is almost always yes – and the success of those moments of small bravery open the door to achievements they might never have thought possible.

The Learning Pit
You know that our overarching vision is Girls Enjoying Success. But enjoyment of learning does not mean smooth sailing at all times. As I said to the girls, and have reinforced at our Welcome Evenings, real learning requires grappling with challenge, ‘intelligent floundering’, and falling into the Learning Pit. It’s frustrating and stressful but it’s good for our students – creating robust, resilient, Fearless Learners who will rise to the challenge of their GCSEs and A levels and are ready to move on to life after Channing.

The Learning Pit provides a useful visual representation of what we mean when we talk about this core aspect of learning. Many people imagine learning as a steady climb up a ladder, but in reality, it’s more like tumbling into a muddy pit before you can climb back out again. We know that our high-achieving, risk averse girls often prefer to avoid that dip and our aim is to show that the struggle is not a sign of failure; it’s the most productive part of the learning process.

Our role as teachers is to support students in getting out of the Pit, not to give them all the answers right away. Giving students the answers would suggest we don’t believe they can work it out for themselves. Instead they need to use everything they already know, ask questions and make links and connections to find their own way out. Above all we want to encourage students not to dodge the Pit but to search out the hard things that make them struggle, to jump in and wrestle with them. Because every time they climb out, they are not just learning a subject; they are learning to keep going, how to think harder and how to believe in themselves.

For your part, when your child comes home and tells you that she was really struggling in a lesson and the teacher refused to help, please do ask her about her experience in the Learning Pit first, before emailing her teacher with a concern that she’s not getting enough support. None of us like to see our children frustrated and the temptation to step in and smooth things out for them remains strong at all ages. However when we do that we suggest that we don’t trust them to be able to sort things out for themselves: “I know you can work this out” is a really powerful response.

The Channing Promise
We want our pupils to be ambitious for themselves, and our teachers certainly share that ambition. However, we foster this in a culture of mutual support rather than fierce competition. This distinctive atmosphere stems directly from our Unitarian foundation and our focus on kindness, acceptance, and inclusivity. These principles are enshrined in the Channing Promise, which all staff and students live by, creating a safe, happy environment where pupils feel secure enough to take intellectual risks.

The Channing Promise is on screen at the start of every assembly, saved in every Google Classroom and talked about often. As I said to the girls on Tuesday, if they get in trouble at Channing, it’s probably because they have broken an element of that promise.

Uniform
I also talked to the girls about how our school culture translates into daily practicalities like the wearing of school uniform. In many schools, the start of every day is dominated by instructions to roll down skirts, tuck in shirts, or tie back hair. At Channing, we intentionally take a different path. When your daughter walks through our doors each morning, we want her very first interaction with a member of staff to be: “Good morning,” “How are you?” or “What’s new with you today?”

We firmly believe that relationships should be built on conversation, not correction. That is why our approach to uniform is deliberately relaxed, and grounded in two fundamental principles:

1. A Feminist Principle: It is not our job to police young girls’ bodies or measure hemlines. Our role as educators is to support pupils in understanding their bodies and navigating how they choose to present themselves to the world. It is not for us to define ‘decency’ or spend energy measuring centimetres above the knee.
2. Protecting a Unique Space: For many pupils, school is the last environment where they can dress entirely for themselves, free from external pressures. Beyond our gates, young women unfortunately encounter scrutiny and street harassment. Inside Channing, we cherish an environment where girls can simply be, entirely on their own terms...

Ultimately, these guidelines exist so that we can focus on what truly matters: your child’s character, talents, mind, and personal growth. We want every student at Channing to feel valued as a distinct individual. As our namesake, William Ellery Channing, wrote so beautifully (and you have heard me quote on umpteen occasions): “Each of us is intended to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be and do what no other can exactly do.”...

And finally…
One of our favourite start-of-year traditions is connecting our newest Reception pupils with our Year 13 students – a poignant reminder of the full, rich journey that lies ahead. While we could not do that in person this year as we are not yet able to gather the whole school together in the Sports Hall, the Class of 2027 and Class of 2040 (yes, really!) sent video messages to each other in assembly...

Whether your daughter is embarking on a seven-year Senior School journey with us in Year 7 or preparing for her final stretch in Year 13, this year promises to be a wonderful voyage of discovery.