Dear Parents, Teachers and boys of our Junior school,
I have a confession to make ……
On Sunday I made a journey to our school in the car with Ewan (my son) because I had to check that the alarms were set and that water was turned off. However when I entered our school I was struck by the amount of space, light and colour that shines at this time of year. It was special to witness the life and beauty emanating from our campus at this time of year. However, one key element was gone and that was the soul and energy of the boys, parents, staff and teachers of our school. Flowers and Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom, but who was there to appreciate this beauty? Nobody was there to kick a rugby ball through the posts, run all around our 57 acres, plant sunflower seeds in our sensory garden. The noise and vibrancy of boys playing, teachers and parents talking and enjoying the sunshine at this time of year was gone. As the picture above illustrates, nobody would be there on Monday to pick up the Cherry Blossom petals and talk to Martin at our set down area as the excitement of term three begins in our Junior school. This filled me with sadness.
The structured routine and social aspect of our holistic education within the Junior is something that I am certain we all miss. Our Willow curriculum uses all of this space and light both inside and outside of the classroom. I am looking forward to using all of these areas again to reintegrate our boys back into the normal structure and routine of classroom learning. This will be quite a task when we start back and I must thank our fantastic Junior school staff for their hard work, cooperation, quick learning and problem solving skills in trying to keep our holistic curriculum continuing remotely.
I am going to steal some lines from one Fifth Form teacher Mr. MacRae as he messaged the boys in his class on Wednesday of this week–
If there’s one thing I have learnt from this, it is not to take things for granted. I am going to swim, hike, cycle, run, chat, hug and a hundred other things when it is safe to do so. I’ll need more hours in the day!