Head of School's 2026 Academic Awards Ceremony Address

Posted 6/19/2026

I was thinking last night about the end of year awards ceremonies, our school motto – Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat (Let the rewards go to those who have worked to deserve them) – the Shawnigan Journey, inspirational teachers and coaches, report writing and much more.

In a recent Senior Leadership Team strategic away day off campus, I asked each member of my team to write down the name of a teacher or coach who had inspired them when they were at school – and to share with us more about the individual teacher and why he or she had made a significant difference to their life. I suggested at the end that each member of the Senior Leadership Team write to the teacher (or his or her family) – decades on – to express gratitude for the encouragement, support and inspiration and to tell them, even now, that their influence continues. It is, after all, never too late to say thank you.

What struck me most was that Mr. Mayes (Class of ’89) chose not to highlight an inspirational Shawnigan teacher but instead told the story of a science teacher in the 1980s who had actively discouraged him from taking chemistry in Grade 12. Mr. Mayes had loved chemistry from an early age, inspired by a Christmas gift of a chemistry set.

Disappointed and discouraged, he listened to the advice of his teacher and didn’t take Shawnigan’s Chem 12 course – but at university, he spotted the opportunity to take a bridging course and, after a stellar undergraduate journey, finished with Honours and Distinction in Chemistry.

His love of his subject has led him to be an inspiring chemistry teacher. I can think of one student in my time here – Keely from Jasper – who overcame some initial learning challenges – with Mr. Mayes’ constant encouragement – and has just this spring been offered two PhD pathways in the field of science at the University of Cambridge.

The story of Mr. Mayes’ academic journey at Shawnigan is certainly not the first time in the history of education that a teacher has made an inaccurate assessment of a student’s ability.

If you remember, Mr. Holloway gave a speech in chapel in late January to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and gave us all an insight into the German scientists of the 1930s and the emergence of quantum theory.

Somehow in our discussions on his drafts for the speech, he alerted me to the story of Sir John Gurdon, who passed away in October 2025. Gurdon was ranked, when at school in the 1940s, in last place out of 250 boys in his year group in biology. His biology teacher wrote ungenerously and rather scathingly, “I believe he has ideas of becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous.” As ongoing motivation, he framed this report above his desk in his study. In response to his last place and his biology teacher’s academic condemnation, he went on to study at Oxford and Cambridge and won many international awards and medals in the field of biology, was knighted for his service to academia, and in 2012 won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.

How wrong his high school biology teacher was!

I have a book in the Head’s Study entitled Could Do Better: School Reports of the Great and the Good.

Some of my favourite reports from yesteryear include:

“He shows great originality, which must be curbed at all costs;”

“He has glaring faults and they have certainly glared at us this term;”

“She has set herself an extremely low standard which she has failed to maintain;”

A famous writer’s talent was denounced with the immortally unpleasant “Well, goodbye Graves, and remember that your best friend is the waste-paper basket.”

The Liverpool teacher of John Lennon of Beatles fame wrote:

“Certainly [John] is on the road to failure… hopeless… rather a clown in class… wasting other people’s time.”

Winston Churchill, politician and statesman, fares little better: “[Winston] is a constant trouble to everyone and is constantly in some scrape or other… he has no ambition…”

And perhaps my favourite Headmaster’s report reads: “It would seem that this student thinks he is running the school and not me. If this attitude persists one of us will have to leave.”

Closer to home, Mr. Hyde-Lay was told by his Western Civilization teacher, the great Graham Anderson, that he “seemed to want something for nothing.” It still stings to this day.

So what’s my point?

For those students here this evening recognized already for their scholarly approach with their Shawnigan Academic Colours and who are about to receive further academic honours: very, very well done.

Please bear your ties and awards with pride and I hope they will live at home for years to come as a reminder of your achievement.

Back to our motto – Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat.

You will have received stellar reports from your teachers.

For the rest of you yet to win your colours, who come second in prizes this evening, or who have given your all but not won through or who have received a disappointing report or have simply not yet found your passion, please continue to be curious – and explore and search for your superpower.

These awards don’t define you at Shawnigan or beyond – and there will be other opportunities and other spheres in which you excel.

Many of you will be late to blossom and will prove the occasional teacher and their report card wrong, as many have done before you.

Think Gurdon, the Nobel Laureate; think “Amazing” Mayes, the inspirational chemistry teacher; think Winston Churchill…

Maybe one day one of you sitting here this evening will win a Nobel Prize – and I bet it would be someone unheralded, unexpected.

All part of life’s rich tapestry.

May your individual and unique Shawnigan Journey serve as a springboard to a lifelong love and respect for learning for its own sake.

And let’s now do what we do so well at Shawnigan: generously clap and appreciate the success of those around us.

Richard D.A. Lamont

Head of School

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

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