Tenacity
Being persistent, passionate, and never giving up is a skill that everyone has the capability of developing, but not everyone masters. When tenacity is at play, miraculous things happen. Pupils achieve things for themselves that they never dreamed they could do. We believe that pupils gain an enormous amount of confidence from sticking with a difficult task and seeing it through to the end.
Beanie has always been a good runner, but for one reason or another, each year when it has come to the Surrey Schools’ Cross Country Championships, she has never achieved the result that she deserved. She has run in the event every year except in Year 9 when she was unwell for a number of months. Last year, she had her best finish of 6th which gained her selection (Surrey) for the National Schools’ Cross Country Finals in Leeds . Ever the improver, this year Beanie stormed to victory and won the Surrey Schools’ Senior Girls title! A huge achievement! Following her victory at the Surrey School Cross Country (XC) Champs in January, Beanie not only ran for Surrey at the National Schools’ XC Champs in Leeds, she was also asked in advance to be the Girls’ Captain for the entire county squad. From all accounts she was an excellent captain, which involved a Q&A session with the younger athletes. Beanie finished 37th in her Senior Girls race, and in the process became one of the scoring runners for Surrey. Beanie is just one example of a Dunottar pupil who embodies the Warrior Learner trait of tenacity.
A team of pupils from our Robotics Club took part in the First Lego League regional tournament in London. Pupils were challenged to design, build and program an autonomous Lego robot to solve a series of missions. Despite thorough testing and preparation ahead of the competition, the team’s robot consistently crashed during the first round. The team realised that the bright lights of the competition table were affecting the light sensors on the robot, therefore it was not stopping as intended. After a disappointing first round score the team decided to completely rewrite their code before the next round. Having worked on the robots for months this was no small task, but they set to work adapting all the code and retesting every mission. The team showed enormous creativity and resilience under pressure – skills that will serve them very well in the future. The final scores saw the team secure 4th place overall – a tremendous recovery!
Dhara is one of our top Warrior Linguists in Year 8. Joining the school in Year 7 with no previous language experience, she has persevered in her language studies and has enjoyed the challenges en route to mastery. Through her tenacity and aspiration, she has been able to achieve consistently high marks and is outperforming many of her peers, many of whom have been learning languages for a longer period.
Shortly after joining the school in Year 7, Billy, developed Labyrinthitis, an illness which caused him to have a lot of time away from school. Billy had a real passion for science, and despite his illness, he was determined to keep up his studies. Through hard-work, dedication and determination, Billy is now one of our developing Scholars and continues to explore the wonderful world of science with curiosity and enthusiasm.
