Artwork by Aneeq Bakare, Year 5, Thomas Walling Primary Academy

Last Wednesday night, along with about 20,000 people, I listened to Mumford & Sons stand on a tiny platform, in the middle of the O2 arena, and sing:

Give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light.

It was heart-stoppingly beautiful and powerful.

As I reflect on this year, that line is stuck in my head – both exhortation and gratitude.

In every part of the Laidlaw community this year we have seen so many things to celebrate.

Laidlaw Schools Trust

At Laidlaw Schools Trust (LST) we saw that by providing 30 hours of nursery schooling to all pupils, we could dramatically improve reading. Our year one reading results were the best in our history. As were our reading, writing and maths results at Key Stage 2 – above national; and, most encouragingly, particularly good for our most disadvantaged pupils and those with SENDs. We proved that investing in intentional interventions can genuinely change life outcomes.

Now we’re rolling out our PedTech strategy. By the end of the academic year, every child in the Trust will have their own iPad; allowing for individualised learning and protecting teachers’ time and well-being. 

We are so grateful to the incredible team at LST who are delivering on these big strategic initiatives and in doing so, impacting lives at scale. We are equally humbled by the teachers and welfare teams who change life outcomes one child at a time.

In the summer I had the absolute privilege of seeing one of our primary school pupils, Maria, on the stage at Shakespeare’s Globe as a finalist in the national Poetry by Heart competition. Her teacher had brought her to London by train and stayed overnight with her so that she could be there. Maria met the Schools Minister and told her that she had “already won” by having the chance to come to London. I saw Maria again recently when Lord Laidlaw and I showed one of our newest Foundation Trustees, the inimitable Professor Kathryn Hess, around her school. Maria’s light shines so brightly it is like being wrapped up in joy.

Laidlaw Scholars

The Laidlaw Scholars in our undergraduate Leadership and Research Programme were also inspiring this year. Their research was across every discipline and UN SDG, spanning topics from Weaving Justice into Sustainable Tourism: Community Cohesion in Costa Rica’s Cantons to The Impact of Face-like and Non-Face-like Light Stimuli on Fetal Eye Behaviour In Utero. At both our European and N. American Annual Scholars Conferences, for the first time, commissioning editors from Taylor and Francis, judged Scholars’ research posters and short listed the best for publication. 

The theme of the conferences this year was Brave. Not in the uber-confident, adrenalin-rush sort of way; but, in the so scared you can barely breathe but move forward nevertheless sort of way. The kind of bravery that speaks up for someone when everyone else is studiously silent; the kind of bravery that carefully listens to views they profoundly disagree with; and the kind of bravery that risks personal, or even public, failure as the best way to learn and grow. Across three days, Scholars from 19 universities modelled that bravery on the main stage, in UN-SDG group sessions, masterclasses and social interactions.

Next year, MIT, Harvard and NYU Abu Dhabi will recruit their first cohorts of Laidlaw Scholars. Their resolve to develop a new generation of ethical leaders, equally committed to integrity as to impact, is another beacon of hope.

Women in Leadership 

Our Trailblazers at Trinity College Dublin and Laidlaw Scholars at London Business School, IE Madrid, HEC Paris and Oxford’s Saïd Business School exude moral ambition, sisterhood and the determination to make the world a better place. Helping to propel them into leadership roles by gifting them the education and networks of world class institutions; knowing that they will lift up other women as they lead, gives me hope that the persistent and pernicious gender inequity that we still see too often in organisations in every sector and geography, can be addressed. 

Ben Lane at Acumen uses the wonderful sign off, “with hard-edged hope”. Our friends at The Oxford Character Project say that,

Hope lives in the tension between what is and what could be. It moves us forward, pursuing the pathways that make a better future possible.

In 2026 we have the choice whether to lean into darkness, division and distrust, or to embrace hope; not in a fluffy, naive way, but hard-edged, and intentional. My Christmas wish for us all, is that we dream big and accomplish – that we choose the light.

With love,

Susanna