As an English teacher, I am often brought into contact with perceptions channelled via traditionally-formulated binary oppositions. Is an answer right or wrong? A character good or evil? Should we laugh or cry? It can be tricky to unpick those ways of thinking which may categorise the world in arguably reductive ways, creating silos of separate and disconnected ideas which appear difficult to reconcile. To consider instead moments of connection and to explore the intertwined nature of experience is one of the joys of a growing understanding: to recognise the nuances which exist in the spaces between is, for any learner, to make a thought-provoking discovery.

Literature provides us with numerous examples of the interrelationship between qualities which might be assumed mutually exclusive. John Keats’ ‘Ode on Melancholy’, for instance, muses on the inextricable coexistence of delight and sadness; Chinua Achebe’s ‘Vultures’ considers the ‘tiny glow-worm tenderness’ within the ‘icy caverns of a cruel heart’; and Wilfred Owen’s magnificent ‘Apologia pro Poemate Meo’ brings us eyewitness from the trenches of soldiers simultaneously ‘Seraphic’ and ‘foul’. These foregrounded interconnections remind us that although we might (and absolutely should) strive to understand the separate elements which comprise a reaction or machine for example, it is the combinations and the togetherness that enable us to celebrate a more holistic understanding of the world and our places within it.

Of course, at The Abbey we aim to foster curiosity, independence and cross-curricular connection, building from the PYP-inspired curriculum at the Junior School, sustaining throughout Key Stage 3, and thus establishing the tone for Key Stage 4 and beyond. Inspired by our ongoing programmes of enrichment, elements of themed learning and this year’s inaugural and truly wonder-filled Key Stage 3 Learning Festival, interdisciplinary thinking, holistic understanding and super-curricular stretch and challenge infuse our students’ experiences both within and beyond the classroom.

This week at the Senior School we held a Taster Day for around 150 Year 6 students from the Junior School and a host of other feeder schools. It was cross-curricular. It was collaborative. It was joyful. Following Mr le Fleming’s welcome and assembly encouraging curiosity about the extra senses we have beyond the five most commonly cited (and yes, I looked them up, and can tell you they are known, collectively, as the interoceptive senses, as opposed to those exteroceptive five, seeing, hearing, touch, smell and taste which carry information about the external world), our visiting students set off in their House groups, already forming new friendships and connections. Teams of Abbey staff worked in partnership to lead mind-and-body-stretching activities which blended Maths and English; Latin and Modern Foreign Languages; Chemistry and Physics; Sport and Team-building; and Music, Dance and Drama. There was also a fantastic Memory workshop involving patterns, combinations and stories. With a lunchtime quiz, a range of after-school clubs and a final, celebratory pizza party, the day was a triumph of community and togetherness.

Those Year 6 students, each with their own ways of seeing the world, were intertwined in an experience which enabled them to exist in new spaces: physical, intellectual, perceptual. As I watched them heading off at the end of the day, smiling and brimming with tales to be told, the much-quoted epigraph of E. M. Forster’s Howards End sprang to mind, with its vision of true communication which exists beyond barriers and celebrates community and fellowship: ‘Only connect!’

Dawn Bellamy, Deputy Head