Writing for The Leaders Council, headteacher Andrew Clowes discusses the need to ‘seize the day’ in the current climate and how his staff team at Hey With Zion Primary School in Oldham have sought to do just that, even with all of the difficulties and risks surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Stoics have a favourite saying- “memento mori” [remember you are going to die] and from that comes the saying “Carpe Diem” [seize the day], first used by Roman poet Horace and more recently popularised in the 1989 film, “Dead Poets’ Society.”
Seizing the day is what we have been doing in school this half term.
We have learned not to trust too heavily in what the future will bring, so have tried to cram as much life and vitality into our re-opened time together as we can.
We have had a visiting author [Richard O’Neill], a visiting artist [Chris Cyprus], Lancashire C.C.C. women cricketers coming in to encourage girls to take up sport, our local M.P. [Debbie Abrahams] talking to our oldest pupils about democracy and climate change, and a world record holding freestyle footballer [Ash Randall] extolling the values of hard work and practice while the children have some fun.
We have had a Spanish Day, a Victorian Day, raised money for a Gambian school where we sponsor some children’s education, we have run a collective marathon for Alzheimer’s, had a pumpkin growing competition, and entered a national football competition where the journey ends for two lucky schools at Wembley.
More than just lessons happen in schools.
We have visited our founder church for the Harvest Festival, visited the artist’s studio where the children have looked around the exhibition and carried out their own sketches, visited the local countryside for Geography fieldwork about rivers, or just to enthuse the children to improve their writing. Our Year Three children have started to learn to play brass instruments, our Year Fours a recorder; our Year Fives are learning to play chess. Some staff have put on after-school tuition sessions, some even on Saturdays.
We have run after school clubs: netball, choir, rounders, multi-sports, cross country; and we are also planning ahead and booking things for the future. For example, we are booking a trip to London and a tour of Parliament, and in November we shall be starting extra reading tuition for forty children via the National Tuition Programme.
The children will mostly have a break next week, but the school will not sleep.
We shall be putting in extra Covid measures, such as a stable door to protect office staff, and I shall be coming in for one of our children to take part in the excellent Children’s Parliament UK event scheduled for the build up to the COP26 climate change summit. I was so proud to have one of our children selected to represent our constituency in this super event which was one of the late Sir David Amess’ projects.
We are tired, but it has been good, exhilarating.
Somebody [not a teacher] asserted recently in my earshot that teachers really aren’t up to much, his evidence being that none he was talking with could think of a teacher who had influenced them.
I could not let it pass.
We would not criticise a modern car because cars in the 1980s used leaded petrol, we would not say televisions are no good today because the pictures used to be in black and white. We would not say the mobiles in our pocket are hopeless because the phone box did not work a long time ago, so please, I said, do not judge the teachers of today by the standards of what you perceived when you were a child, a long time ago.
I am so proud of our teachers. They, and the rest of the school staff [teaching assistants, midday supervisors, office staff, site staff, cleaners and cooks] have done and are doing a remarkable job.
They have, quite literally, saved lives with their management of Covid, keeping not just the children safe but by extension their families and the whole communities. There are over 24,000 schools in the UK, each one protecting its own little area, setting the standards. and putting into practice pragmatic, safe ways of living our lives in a productive but not reckless manner.
We all know Covid has not disappeared, but we are carrying on regardless. School staff are not immune to it- two of my staff are off work now, positive with Covid but the children are thriving. There is no reduction in service.
I travel to a few schools in my role and in all of them I see children who are happy to be there, feeling cherished and of value. Their schools are giving them stability, compassion and the children are happy to be back. They have a purpose.
A lot of faith schools, my own included, have adopted a set of “core values” which exist to strengthen the children’s sense of who they are, and what they are about. My own school’s adopted values are, “living life to the full, thankfulness, respectfulness, kindness, forgiveness and charity.” To these we may add the cardinal virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance, perhaps interdependence and perseverance too. The school council is currently discussing them.
These values build character which is every bit as important as academic attainment. [The two often complement one another, it is not an either/or]. They also build resilience.
Behind the scenes, teachers are busier than ever with reworking and development of the curriculum, modernising it and adapting it in the light of the latest research. Primary teachers are nearly all “subject leaders” [like a head of department in a subject but without extra pay] and they will be working this half term on Ofsted’s research papers, seeing if our “curriculum intent” [syllabus] for their subject needs to be amended, perhaps drawing out key concepts or vocabulary to create “layered knowledge” so that gaps in learning do not create big holes. They will also be working on the plans for next half term, making sure they present the learning in ways conducive to committing it to long term memory. “Differentiation” is out, “adaptation” is in.
Teachers enjoy good holidays; but they won’t be putting their feet up for much of them.
They are doing a remarkable job.
