Time For Hope

7th January 2022

Nothing says ‘hope’ better than the sparkling gleam of optimism captured in young children’s eyes. We should all seek to put down the large bag of worries that we accumulate and carry around as we grow older and instead spend more time developing our inner faith of a child.

For the sixth term in a row my Staff Agenda for the first Staff Meeting of the term threatened to be weighed down by this ongoing pandemic which just does not want to go away. Although we are fully versed in safety and helpful precautionary measures, COVID cannot continue to dominate our lives. At St Christopher’s’ we never forget that at the centre of all planning must be the welfare and wellbeing of every child as we charter our voyage away from COVID restrictions and cancellations. For many of our youngest children they may have forgotten a world in which kindly shoppers smile and engage with them in shops and supermarket queues, replaced by mask wearing, stressed adults trying to safely navigate their own lives and struggling to communicate behind the mandatory mask. This makes the job of the school all the more important to explain and decode this strange new world. To couple safety with adventure and wherever possible to carry on exposing the children to the rich set of life opportunities that they need to survive and flourish in the 21st Century.

We were so pleased, at the end of last term, to have been able to take every single child to our local theatre. To engage in the ‘normal’ practice of walking down to the theatre whilst talking to the parent helper assigned to each group, discussing the anticipation or fear of a theatre trip and listening and digesting the responses. This was  before all the benefits of a live theatre experience! Children need to communicate in order to develop and secure their own communication skills. The prevention of this essential skill during the COVID pandemic will at some point have an effect on young children and I am so proud of my whole school community for their courage and attention to detail that has ensured that opportunities for our young children were not denied.

So at the beginning of term when some schools were cancelling future events, we were putting them clearly in the diary. We will not take risks with our families but we will drive forward and learn to manage and live alongside this new medical phenomenon. We will protect the opportunities that our young children need to blossom and thrive as we move forward into a time of hope with an exciting new term full of adventure and possibilities.

Annie Thackray