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Focus on Education February 2021: No.1

Suffering and compassion

However hard we try to remain positive and full of hope, we cannot pretend that life is a bundle of laughs currently. Whereas many of us knew few people who had tested positive last spring, the situation has changed enormously and most of us will now know either someone who has sadly died or who has lost a loved one to this horrid disease. Many of the individual tales that lie behind the statistics are heart breaking and we are aware of the trauma and the tragedy to which ITU medical staff are exposed to on a daily basis. We probably have friends and family working in ITU and/or Covid Wards and these tales are real and devastating. My sister-in-law works as a Consultant at New Cross Hospital and the burden is a heavy one for her and her colleagues.

We cannot simply turn off the news and ignore the suffering, nor can we suggest to our children that everything is OK – because we know it isn’t. Wednesday marked Holocaust Memorial Day when we remembered the unspeakable suffering and slaughter of millions. This year’s theme is ‘Be the light in the darkness’. It encourages us to reflect not only on the depths to which humanity can sink, but also on the ways in which individuals and communities resisted that darkness to ‘be the light’ before, during and after genocide. World events currently may leave us feeling helpless, but we have also witnessed the very best of which humanity is capable in many acts of compassion and kindness.

We marked Holocaust Memorial Day through our online assembly and on our own in a moment of silence and of reflection, remembering the suffering of those who have been killed and of those who have survived. Even better, we can find time to educate ourselves more about the stories of those who suffered perhaps by visiting the Holocaust Memorial Day website www.hmd.org.uk. Or we could read a book about other similar experiences like Morris Gleitzman’s ‘Once’ or Anne Frank’s Diary or Tom Palmers ‘After the War’. We can make ourselves aware of the kind of ‘hate- speech’ that still exists today. The type of language designed to make us think of other people as different, or a threat, or as aliens. Being alert to it can help us all to recognise it, to reject it, to challenge it, and to confront it. However, most of all we must never forget. In the words of the Holocaust survivor and poet Elie Wiesel, “If we forget the dead will be killed a second time”.

We are determined that our young people should not only feel a sense of togetherness and belonging despite being separated, but that we also become a kinder and more considerate community – looking after each other and caring for those less fortunate than ourselves. We have often spoken as a society about learning lessons from this nightmare and it is vital that those positive lessons become embedded after the pandemic in the values and actions of our school. We want to ensure that diversity is celebrated and that all our students feel fully included and valued.

As we remain confined to our homes, juggling the demands of work and school with limited opportunities for many of our leisure pursuits, let there be ample kindness and light in your family this weekend.

Stay well and safe. Be kind to yourself and each other.

Dr Bird

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Wellbeing Advice – February 2021

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Wellbeing Advice

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Misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine

As you will have seen on the news or read in the press, there is a great deal of misinformation and fake news on social media about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. This fake news is dangerous and will cost lives. Please watch this video which explains why the vaccines are safe and share it widely with your friends and family. Also see if you can spot the HGS Oldboy.
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British Asian celebrities unite for video to dispel Covid vaccine myths

Please see the following recent article on the BBC News website:

British Asian celebrities unite for video to dispel Covid vaccine myths – BBC News

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Focus on Education January 2021 No: 3

“The only thing we have is one another. The only competitive advantage we have is the culture and values of the company. Anyone can open up a coffee store. We have no technology, we have no patent. All we have is the relationship around the values of the company and what we bring to the customer every day. And we all have to own it.”

Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks

I am not about to suggest that a school is like a coffee shop! Yet the words

‘culture…values…relationship’ certainly resonate, and perhaps more so than ever in current times. I don’t talk much about exam results when I address prospective parents at Open day events; they can find them on our website, where they speak for themselves. But I do focus on culture and values, for they are what underpin the success and happiness of our school. Understanding the culture and sharing the values of our school strengthens our community and all it stands for. It informs our behaviour and results in consistent messages and expectations – both within the school and facing outwards:

“And we all have to own it.”

We may have excellent grounds, fine buildings and modern facilities, but it is the members of our community – our students, staff and parents who lend it its strength and character. People and the quality of our relationships matter more than anything else.

When we lose a much-loved member of our community, as we have done during the pandemic, we know how important those relationships are to our daily lives and to our daily happiness. The stronger the relationships, the greater the joy they bring, and the deeper the pain we feel at their loss. But, we also draw mutual comfort and support by standing together: “The only thing we have is one another.”

It has been a challenging term and indeed year both for the school and for many of our families, and I have been very impressed by the positive commitment of our students, and by the diligence and care of the staff. Huge progress has been made in so many areas and often in the face of considerable obstacles. We can look forward with optimism to brighter days ahead.

I watched Joe Biden’s inauguration with interest and was hugely impressed and humbled by the 22 year-old poet Amanda Gorman who said in her poem “The Hill We Climb”:

When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.

We’ve braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

So during this turbulent time be kind to one another, hold onto hope, look up and be the light we all need in our lives.

Stay well and safe.

Be kind to yourself and each other. Dr Bird

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Remote Learning Guidance and Support

We have recently updated our Remote Learning Guidance and Support. Please see the Remote Learning Guidance area by following the “Curriculum” menu on our website, then navigating to “Remote Learning Guidance” for more details.

Stay safe and well.

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Focus on Education January 2021 No. 2

Start where you are

We are pleased to ‘see’ our students back in lessons and have been impressed in the first weeks of this Lockdown by their levels of engagement. The ability now afforded to us by Teams to see whole classes on screen and to send students into break-out rooms to collaborate makes a substantial difference to the interactive nature and enjoyment of their learning. Such features are an additional support to our teaching, adding further life to the virtual classroom.

We hope that the commitment to a timetable of Remote Learning which incorporates live lessons gives our students a sense of purpose, progress and stability when so much seems uncertain. It is hard to see far into the future currently, and I know it helps me every morning to focus on what there is to achieve and look forward to in the day ahead. Many of us will be accustomed to being far more in control of our lives, yet we have had to learn to walk on shifting sands!

In such a climate we can only ask our children to do their best, day-to-day, in the faith that all those small yet achievable steps will eventually add up to something much bigger.

Some of you will remember Arthur Ashe, the first African American male tennis-player to win Wimbledon (in 1975) and to be ranked No. 1 in the world. He was quite an inspirational figure, whose words and activism extended well beyond sport.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

This provides a simple set of principles, which could serve our children (and indeed all of us) well in the days to come.

Stay safe and well.

Be kind to yourself and each other.

Dr Bird

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Oxford University Success

We have just heard that our Ex Head Boy, Hasnain Sumar has secured a place at Mansfield College, Oxford University to read Theology and religion. We are delighted for him and send him our very best wishes and congratulations.

This is a thoroughly well deserved academic success and Hasnain has displayed great resilience and fortitude in the face of adversity throughout the last six months. He deserves to be over the moon and enjoy the fruits of his labour – well done Hasnain.

 

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Focus on Education January 2021

Whilst we head into our second and full week of Lockdown, we are determined to ensure that students keep connected and engaged and we are planning events for the term ahead. We will keep the HGS community spirit alive and attempt to ensure that this period is as fun as possible. Even though we have key worker children and some staff on site, the school campus is exceptionally quiet and we all terribly miss the buzz of the students. Once again, we here and at home have to bounce back. Collectively though we can do this and our resilience, strength of character and care for each other within our community will ensure we look to the horizon, hold our heads high, and head into 2021 with renewed determination.

The way you adapted so well last term was also mirrored by the way all the staff adapted. You showed great spirit, determination and resilience as well as good humour. As did all our staff. Faced with novel ways of teaching, with their daily norms and all the things that they love from their profession taken from them, teachers showed the same determination as you, all with the requisite wit, humour and great spirit that you would expect from them. Throughout the last term, I feel you were taught with passion, with spirit and with the high standards that we expect at HGS. This was done all behind masks, screens, and in rooms suffused with the smell of hand sanitiser and anti-viral desk cleaner.

And this happened whilst many of you were deeply anxious about COVID and the effects it might have on your family. There are just over 1040 of you sitting at home at the moment, and 15 here at school as the children of key workers. That is nearly 1060 individual stories. Each and every one of you has had to cope with worries about the virus affecting you, but many of you even more worried about how it has affected your older relations. A number of you have faced tragedy. Each and every one of you has had a silent, invisible cross that you have needed to bear which has weighed you down, yet as you have walked that onwards you have managed to do so without it affecting your daily life. Tragically, over the holiday a some of you have had to deal with losing someone immensely close to you. My heart goes out to you, and the prayers of the community are with you.

In addition to the lockdown and the need to revert to online teaching and learning, there is now a lack of clarity about the summer exams. The Department for Education stated that exams ‘will not go ahead as planned.’ At this moment, we don’t know exactly what that will mean.

Whatever happens with the exams, we will be teaching you the full curriculum as planned. We will be working on all the information that we are given and will keep you, and your parents informed and updated immediately we receive it.

But whatever advice and guidance we are given, the summer exam session is six months away. And that means, after the long and academically busy Autumn Term, we have a huge amount of ground to cover, not just in exam year groups, but also in every year group.

I want to make it very clear. HGS has not closed. HGS is open. Our provision has changed because we have been forced to change. But our teaching will continue, and those of you who have experienced this in the last major lockdown will know that in many ways learning online is far more intense, and often far harder, than learning in school. It requires focus, and it requires hard work. Please do contact your Subject teachers and Form tutors if you are struggling with any of the work. Please also refer to the Remote Learning guidance which we sent to your parents at the end of last week.

And just because HGS has changed the way it delivers the curriculum, it doesn’t mean that it changes its expectations on you. Assembly and Form time will still take place. Lesson times will remain the same. Breaks will remain the same. Our expectations of your behaviour are the same. We will keep the community spirit alive, and we will ensure that this period is also great fun.

Lockdown has taught us to consider what matters most in life. Give some thought to this:

When everything is gone, when material riches pass when the bareness of life is exposed, it is love that endures. Love is what endures through those times, which are not easy, either professionally and or personally.

A phrase often used is this: life is not about how high you fly, but about how well you bounce. It is about how you move on from tragedy, personal disappointment, and professional pushback. It is about how you encourage and propel yourself; not letting the fear of failure becomes a barrier standing in your way.

Whether you have already or not, every student will have to face challenges and setbacks. As we look to bounce back from these moments, it will be love that sustains you.

The 2 images about our work with the Homeless and our local Foodbank at the end of this piece demonstrate and show what a kind and loving community we are.

Once again, we are going to need to bounce back. Once again, we are going to need to collectively move on from personal disappointment and from professional pushback.

In addition to working hard and not losing our focus on academic development, we need to use this time of challenge to develop our resilience, our strength of character and love for each other. We must also use it as a time for self-reflection and personal development. We must use it to realise that to be happy is not to have a perfect life and that we alone are the authors of our own destiny. Many a time you will be told that you can be anything you want in the world. And you’re told that because you alone are the authors of your own destiny, the captain of your own ship we can either use this period to moan and complain or we look to the horizon, hold our head high, support each other and bounce back.

As we prepare ourselves for week 2 of Lockdown, and as we get ready for two months of hard work, for a new normal, for Virtual HGS think about the words below from Pope Francis. Remember them as you go about your lessons today and prepare for the months ahead.

‘You can have flaws, be anxious, and even be angry, but do not forget that your life is the greatest enterprise in the world. Only you can stop it from going bust.

Many appreciate you, admire you and love you.

Remember that to be happy is not to have a sky without a storm, a road without accidents, work without fatigue, and relationships without disappointments.

To be happy is to find strength in forgiveness, hope in battles, and security in the stage of fear, love in discord.

It is not only to enjoy the smile, but also to reflect on the sadness. It is not only to celebrate the successes, but also to learn lessons from the failures. It is not only to feel happy with the applause, but also to be happy in anonymity.

Being happy is not a fatality of destiny, but an achievement for those who can travel within themselves.

Being happy is not being afraid of your own feelings. It’s to be able to talk about you. It is having the courage to hear a “no”. It is confidence in the face of criticism, even when unjustified.

It is to kiss your children, pamper your parents, to live poetic moments with friends, even when they hurt us. To be happy is to let live the creature that lives in each of us, free, joyful and simple.

It is to have the maturity to be able to say: “I made mistakes”. It is to have the courage to say, “I am sorry”. It is to have the sensitivity to say, “I need you”. It is to have the ability to say, “I love you”.

May your life become a garden of opportunities for happiness. That in spring may it be a lover of joy. In winter a lover of wisdom

And when you make a mistake, start all over again. For only then will you be in love with life.

You will find that to be happy is not to have a perfect life. But use the tears to irrigate tolerance. Use your losses to train patience. Use your mistakes to sculptor serenity. Use pain to plaster pleasure. Use obstacles to open windows of intelligence.

Never give up.

Never give up on people who love you.

Never give up on happiness, for life is an incredible show.’

Stay safe and well.

Be kind to yourself and each other.

Dr Bird