When the millennium was still in short trousers, I worked for a very charismatic and somewhat eccentric headteacher. Last week, I failed to live up to his mesmerising standard of school assemblies.
My old headteacher’s eccentricity was never more on show than during our annual Hats Day celebration, an Easter ceremony of his own devising. Each of us, staff and students, would construct and wear a hat and then go to a special assembly in which the students would be wound into a frenzy of millinery-related excitement that might generously be described as chaos.
Then he’d pause and continue delivering his reflective and uplifting message to a happy but rapt audience.
As I came out of my first Hats Day experience, somewhat bewildered, entirely delighted, an old hand said to me: “It’s not getting them so excited that’s impressive – anyone can do that – it’s bringing them back afterwards.”
