‘Pass on positivity and happiness to others. Receive it too’

Welcome to the first Gateway of the summer term. Whilst the weather is exactly what we like for the last term of the school year, other aspects of our world and our school are not as any of us would wish. Despite this, I am hugely uplifted by the capacity of most of our community to adapt to the challenging situation in which we find ourselves, to keep in perspective what really matters and to understand that we are all playing a long game here – think marathon not sprint. It highlights that a school is not like a supermarket where we go to purchase discrete items. A school is a complex, subtle web in which students, teachers and parents invest for the long term benefit of students. It is not a day to day transaction. This is never more clear than when I watch our alumnae return from university to Speech Day at the Senior School – and I can remember them when they were at the Junior School and see the journey on which they have come.

I hope the first few days of term have proved successful, or at least manageable, for you and your children at this most unusual time. Thank you for your patience, kindness, understanding and support as we have endeavoured to move over very quickly to an entirely new way of delivering an Abbey education to your daughters at home during this temporary phase of national lock down.

We appreciate that you are having to support your children to varying extents with their learning at home. This is particularly difficult if you are also trying to work from home yourselves, or if you or a close friend or relative become unwell. Please do not worry if you do not have the time to ensure that every box is ticked. The clear message from us is that your daughter/s should do what is manageable bearing in mind your family circumstances. We do not wish any of you to be suffering any stress or anxiety over and above what this difficult situation is already causing to us all. Further, we know that some of our pupils and families will have adapted quickly and easily to this new, temporary way of learning, but for others, it will have been more challenging. As the girls settle into the learning cycle over the next couple of weeks, things should feel easier and more familiar. In addition to academic learning offering, your daughter has access to a number of extra-curricular and wellbeing resources. We know from the experience of schools closed in Hong Kong during last year’s riots, that maintaining a sense of connection within the school community was the key to enabling learning and facilitating a smooth return to ‘normal’.

As in school, the students will progress at different rates over the coming weeks and take different routes in their learning. We are quite familiar with this, and the way our curriculum delivery is structured enables students to revisit concepts where needed. Furthermore, Google Classroom and Seesaw help us to keep closely in touch with each girl’s learning journey. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very short period of time within your child’s years in formal education and one of the benefits of The Abbey’s approach to learning and teaching is that the vast majority of any issues that occur during this period can be picked up and remedied quickly.

Everyone is on a steep learning curve at the moment – students, parents and teachers. At the same time, the principles by which we enable learning are unchanged – we know that children who are self-aware, engaged learners who are able to collaborate with others and engage in planned activities, make good progress. We do not best enable learning by talking at students or by getting them to plough through worksheets – ‘busy work’. We hope that you find our newly launched ‘Parent Learning & Teaching Pinboard’ a useful resource, particularly at the moment. See further information below.

Some of you may have been invited by your daughter to see the assembly that I shared with the girls and teachers this week. In it, I introduced the idea of a chain of happiness, and how we, whether in a family, with our friends or in our school and communities, are interlinked: how we can pass on positivity and happiness – or not.

As members of The Abbey School community, we are all interconnected – never more so than at this time. As such, it is important that we all pull together to support the School, and to ensure that, when the time comes, our children are able to return to the same school that they left on March 20 – with their thirst and energy for learning intact.

Have a good weekend – though that is a strange concept at the moment!

Mrs D-C