Choose Kindness

Prefect Sophie shares the advice she would give her younger self – to ask for help, smile more and always choose kindness – in a speech that reminds us how small acts of warmth can shape a whole school community.

Each week, our students share their insights with their peers in Assembly.

At the start of this term, when talking to some Year 7 students in the Undercroft on their first day, I began to think of what I would have wanted to know in that situation and what advice I would give my younger self if I could go back and talk to her now.

I was straight away brought to my favourite TV show from the time, Girl Meets World. Through the many, many rewatches of the series, the one phrase that has stuck with me is “people help people.” This phrase is repeated many times throughout the show and is often referred to as “the secret of life”.

It is a universal truth that as humans, we are notoriously bad at asking for help. As put by Stanford psychologist Xuan Zhao, we often find asking for help hard because we underestimate just how much other people want to help us. We tend to think that we are bothering other people, when in reality, most people around us are far more willing to support than we realise.

In other words: we often think we are alone when we aren’t. If I could go back to 2021, I would tell my Year 7 self to ask for help, whether about schoolwork, friendships or her own personal wellbeing. I would tell her to let people help, because as my Italian teacher, Prof Benti, has taught my whole class to say, “there is no such thing as a stupid question”.

None of us succeed completely on our own. Whether it’s friends, teachers, family or teammates, we all rely on other people more than we probably admit.

However, when you allow others to help you, to give to you, you allow yourself to grow as a person. And likewise, when you give to others, you allow them to grow.

But giving doesn’t always have to be something big. Sometimes the smallest actions can have the greatest impact – even something as simple as a smile.

A smile may seem like nothing, but it can completely change someone’s day and maybe even form a new friendship. It can make a new Year 7 student feel less alone and lost. It can make someone who has had a hard day feel seen. Often, we underestimate the power of even the smallest moments of warmth and positivity.

So, if I could go back, I would tell my Year 7 self to smile all the time, even if she didn’t feel like it. Because whilst smiles have the ability to change another person’s mood, they also have the power to improve your own mood. The act of smiling tricks the brain into feeling happy by triggering the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, which reduce stress and improve physical wellbeing.

But smiling is just one small example of how our everyday actions can impact both ourselves and the people around us. And that leads to the final piece of advice I would give my younger self: to always be kind.

I believe one of the most important choices we can make every single day is to choose kindness. Kindness isn’t just about being friendly or polite; it is about the decisions we make when nobody is watching. It’s defending your friends in a room that they’re not in, including people who you notice are alone, checking in on a friend who seems a bit quieter than usual and treating others with respect – even when it may be inconvenient.

And in a place like high school, these small choices can matter more than we realise. The way we treat people, the effort we put in and the attitudes we carry don’t just affect others; they shape our experience of these years.

For Year 7 students especially, high school can feel daunting at first. But it’s also one of the biggest opportunities for growth - to make friends, to discover passions, build confidence and learn how to support both yourself and others.

So, if there’s anything I’d tell my Year 7 self now, it’s this: let people help you and help others when you can. Smile more than you think you need to and always, always choose to be kind.