Welcome

'The times they are a-changin'

New term. Perhaps a new school, a new job? The only constant is change and the challenge is how we cope with it...excitement or fear? Welcome or resistance?

In my household change is rife; I have one daughter going into Y8, another into year Y13 and the biggest change... my 16 year old stepdaughter has moved in and is starting Y12 at a new school.

I am inspired by how they all take these changes in their stride, with confidence in spite of the apprehension. We have much to learn from our children. Let us embrace the changes too and support our young people in their next step.

On Children

"Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."

Kahlil Gibran 

You have the power!

 We hear from some schools/PRUs who have bought one of our programmes  that it was initially brought to their attention by a TA. It is exciting to know  that anyone who wants to help foster emotional well being in their school  can initiate whole school change, simply by: showing our material to other  staff; talking to colleagues in other schools and asking us to support you.  We can send more information and communicate with the Leadership Team.

 More and more schools are discovering how our resources develop emotional  literacy in pupils...yours could be one of these schools! Please click here. 

What businesses want

 Caroline Waters is director, people & policy, for BT Group, one of the  UK's biggest employers. She gave a keynote speech at the PSHE  Conference in London recently and I was struck by her vivid description  of the kind of employees that businesses are looking for. She highlighted  the five qualities she considers to be the most important:

-          flexibility

-          openness to new ideas

-          knowing how to create teams

-          mental and physical resilience

-          ethical values.

In other words, exam results may be important for getting the interview, but they won't necessarily get you the job or help you keep it. Are we being fair to our students by not making these skills an integral important part of the school curriculum? 

Inspirational olympics!

Both as an English Teacher and as a Year Learning Manager, I sometimes ask students to think about what they want to do when they leave school - the classic "Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time?" question. Numerous students say that their ambition is "to be famous". When pressed to think about what would make them famous, they are hard to pin down. What they are clear about is that their fame involves much press and TV coverage as well as public adulation. This seems to be an end in itself. Not surprising really as this is something they see regularly in our media.

What a welcome breath of fresh air the Olympics have been! Suddenly and intensely we have seen both the able bodied and the disabled achieving outstanding excellence. And, through these achievements we have seen them lauded by all aspects of the media. Young people have role models of men and women from all walks of life, with or without fully functioning bodies, who have striven for excellence in a chosen field. Inspired by them we all want to celebrate their achievements! Being "famous" has been a spin off rather than an end in itself.

Janet Grant 

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