A pearl in the making

In the last blog I wrote on retirement (in November) I dwelt on the pain of separation from a community – in my case a school – that I had been part of over the past nine years. In fact, this was almost my last blog to date as since then I have been going through another type of pain: moving house.

Stressors in life

It is said that the three most stressful things people go through in their lives (apart from some extraordinary tragedy) are bereavement, the break-up of a marriage (or long-standing relationship) and moving house. In our 42 years of marriage, my wife and I have lived in eight different places across three separate countries and changed house 17 times. I didn’t particularly rate, in advance, the latest house move as being especially traumatic – after all we were ‘only’ moving within England this time – but I was wrong! It has led to a great sense of weariness – not just physical but also mental, even spiritual. This has accounted for my silence as far as blogging is concerned.

Moving on

I have tried to analyse why this last move has been so tiring and draining. There are some obvious clues: I’m older now than when we last moved some eight years ago; I have just retired as a Headmaster and I am still adjusting to a new status and state of being; we hadn’t had a good clear-out since 1995 when we left Scotland for England and put far too much in storage in 2000 when we went to India – and then had no time to sift through this when we returned to the UK in 2009 and straight into another school post: until now! Furthermore, we first put our house in Hampshire on the market in April 2018 expecting to sell over the summer and to move to the Midlands in early Autumn: how naïve we were! We eventually moved in January 2019 and only now, two months later, is there some sense of a lifting of fatigue.

Even more fundamental than the ‘clues’ above, has been what on the surface appeared to be a release: for the first time in our married and working lives we have been at liberty to choose where we wanted to live. No longer was there a tie to a teaching post – and in most cases to a boarding community – and thus, as they say, ‘the world was our oyster’. Sadly, the ‘pearl’ was not immediately clear to see and even now the ‘grit’ in the body of the clam is still being worked over as, I hope, the ‘pearl’ is being created. A decision to move nearer to family made sense, as did a location more into central England in view of the itinerant part-time post I am taking up next month. All of this seemed ‘sensible’ but it hasn’t really accounted for the other stressors.

New beginnings

It is apparent that, unlike when we have moved to be part of a new school community, we are now having to create a brand new fellowship in a fresh town, neighbourhood and church without the luxury of there already being one there pre-formed for us to be a part of. Learning names, finding shops and services, coping without the regular routine of the school day, term and year and managing on a pension have all taken their toll. In God’s strength, we are resilient and also convinced that we are in the right place at the right time – but this hasn’t prevented a sense of loss nor a bewilderment at the new surroundings in which we find ourselves. Some will say ‘time heals’: I don’t believe it’s the time which is the healer, only God, but it is true that this can take time to feel and to embrace. Re-starting my blog, if only for my own health, is a sign that things are stabilising but there is still some way to go. ‘Further up and further in’, as CS Lewis puts it in The Last Battle: gradually my new environment will become clearer and more familiar – and it will also be exciting and invigorating even if that’s not just yet!

Boost your mood

Mental health concerns

As a recently retired Headmaster, I remain a member of three professional associations which serve schools in many and varied ways: ISA, The Independent Schools Association (representing around 500 private schools from primary through to the secondary sector), TISCA, The Independent Schools Christian Association (supporting schools with a Christian foundation and ethos and assisting Christian teachers) and the Society of Heads. In each case, conferences and meetings over the past two years have shared a theme: ways of understanding mental health in schools and how we might better boost wellbeing. The Government has also been sponsoring studies into this area and various charities have been promoting ‘mindfulness’ in schools. It seems that young people (let alone staff in schools) are facing unprecedented levels of mental pressure, and not simply at key exam times.

Government initiatives

In its NHS Long Term Plan, published this month, the Government said that by 2023-24, an extra 345,000 children will be able to access mental health support via local health services and new school-based mental health support teams. Alarmingly, however, a goal of ensuring all children get access to the specialist care they need will only be achieved ‘over the coming decade’, the document states. Furthermore, a damning report by the parliamentary education and health committees last year was very critical of the Government plans and argued these delays will put additional pressure on teachers.

Useful advice for all

It was with all this in mind that I was attracted to an article in a back edition of Women’s Weekly (not, I might add, my normal choice of reading, but definitely full of useful features and advice). The article in question was called, ‘Boost your mood in just one day’ and I share a few suggestions from it – either for your own wellbeing or even for that of your children. There may even be a New Year’s resolution here! It was written for key moments of the day (adjustable according to your diary and routine):

7.00am Let in the light: daylight stimulates our body’s serotonin (the so-called ‘happy hormone’) and thus it’s good to open the curtains early
8.00am Eat yogurt for breakfast: probiotic-rich foods are great but I am also profoundly aware that some pupils arrive at school having had little breakfast at all
9.00am Log on and laugh: a great antidote to the backlog of emails awaiting me which I’ll tackle much better once I’ve seen one of the 50 funniest YouTube films (such as the one about playful kittens)
11.00am Catch up with coffee: it’s not just the caffeine which (in moderation) can be helpful but also the stimulus of the oxytocin hormone which is released when we bond with friends
12.30pm 10-minute tidy up: even sorting out a small pile of mail can help create some inner calm and combat the stress hormone cortisol
1.00pm Have a happy meal: ideally not the fast-food variety but a low-carb lunch, again with friends or colleagues to assist bonding
2.30pm Flick through photos: it’s a real mood-booster to look at a few pictures of family and friends
3.00pm Get up against a wall: apparently a 30-second stretch pressed up against a flat surface will enhance our mood
3.30pm Say thank you: my favourite – and see below for an example. Writing one appreciative text, email or letter a week boosts our own satisfaction and happiness levels. Just think what one a day might do!
4.00pm Try speed-thinking: give yourself 30 seconds to list all you can about a loved one or friend. Quick thinking has been proven to improve our mood
4.30pm Cheer up with chocolate: say no more (except it ought to be the dark variety for best results)!
5.00pm Do a good deed: volunteering, giving to charity, doing a random act of kindness – all boosts our mood but also enhances others. A ‘win win’ situation!
6.00pm Chop some fruit: see, feel and smell the fruit – another great activity to raise the spirits
7.00pm Have a fish supper: omega-3 rich salmon is apparently best and thus don’t just wait for Friday (or that seaside holiday) for fish
8.00pm Start your wind down: steady breathing, relaxing muscles…you might fall asleep before you know it! Begin to switch off your devices and have a break before bed – and leave your mobile ‘phone outside your bedroom
10.00pm Go to bed on a kiwi: apparently this fruit is high in serotonin-boosting nutrients and vitamin C…the perfect way to drift off for a happy sleep…

Saying ‘thank you’ – the best of remedies

And so to return to my favourite from the list above – the ‘thank you note’. The following, from a parent last year who had three children through my school and with the youngest just about to leave, was by all accounts stimulated by one of my earlier blogs. I quote just a few sections here and will let them speak for themselves. Suffice it to say, emails such as these go a long way to boosting my mental health and so I wonder who else we might similarly encourage today?

Thank you for your latest email about mind sets. I found it very interesting and it was this that prompted me to write to you. Yes, I know another email for you! I’m sure you get so many, but I hope this will be a welcome addition…

I have thought long and hard how I can thank you all for having (my children) and helping my husband and myself and all our family to shape them into the adults that they have become. It is our belief that basic principles, attitudes and morals are so important to teach children from the minute they are able to recognise them and whilst this indeed starts at home, we have always felt that they have been enforced at your school alongside the way we would teach them. I could buy wine or chocolates, but to me this seems so impersonal whereas I hope the sentiment in this email will stay with you and your colleagues for a little longer than a drink or a box of sweets…

There are so many proud moments that will stay in our memories for ever thanks to your school. Nothing compares to hearing from teachers that they like and enjoy our children’s company. I know that parents’ evening are some people’s nightmares but we always looked forward to it as we heard only constructive comments and we felt that the teachers really knew and understood our children. It is important to us to teach the children to be kind and considerate to others in life as many other things then tend to fall into place. The ‘act of kindness week’ was a fabulous idea: it really makes us stop and think that it doesn’t take much to make others happy.

To say that all of you go beyond your duties as teachers is an understatement…thank you to all the teachers and staff who have been a part of our family for all this time. I truly believe that it takes a very special type of person to be involved with kids’ learning and wellbeing on a day-to-day basis and your school has managed to get it right on every level.

A New Year and an Old Story in schools

‘And so this is Christmas, And what have you done? Another year over, And a new one just begun…’ (John Lennon)

It’s time to ‘bash’ the independent schools again: as ever last year we have had the attack on charitable status (again), the criticism of elitism and places at Oxbridge (again and again) and now, as we enter the New Year, too many private schools are apparently offering ‘easier’ IGCSEs rather than the ‘tougher’, newly reformed, GCSEs. Bah! Humbug!

‘Bashing’ independent schools – again and again

It always strikes me as amazing that with fewer than 10% of the UK school population in independent schools, we seem to attract 90% of the Press attention. We are meant to be a Nation which values ‘the little man’, privatisation, democracy and freedoms – individual and collective – and yet somehow when the word ‘education’ or ‘school’ is combined with ‘private’ or ‘independent’ the blood boils, the prejudices rise and ignorance abounds!

We applaud competition on the High Street and online, we allow people to choose between a range of supermarkets for their weekly shopping without comment and, unless you’re the Home Secretary enjoying a hard-earned family holiday overseas, we value being able to choose a whole range of exciting holiday destinations. When it comes to recognising those families who scrimp and save, however, make sacrifices and hard choices in education – even paying twice for the privilege of schooling – all of a sudden we get onto our self-righteous hobby horses.

Choosing where we might be most effective

The arguments are well rehearsed and clearly made but too many people choose to close their ears and trot out the same old invective against those of us who dare to choose an independent school for our children or, what’s almost worse, deign to work in one. The latter criticism is easily refuted, I feel. When as a 17-year-old I spoke to my Housemaster about being a teacher (yes, I went to an independent boarding school – paid for by working class parents who both left school at 14 years and who sacrificed home ownership, fancy cars and expensive holidays), he wisely suggested I consider where I might be most effective. Having only ever been in private schools myself, I told my Housemaster that I felt I should teach in the State sector. He didn’t try and dissuade me but he also knew me well enough to believe I’d be most influential, happiest and fulfilled in a setting I understood best. At the time of our conversation in the 1970s there was much upheaval in the maintained schools and many teachers were no longer offering to help with sport and extra-curricular activities – aspects of holistic schooling which I value highly. Much has changed in State (and private) schools today, of course, but the advice I received remains valid: choose a school setting where you can best use your talents to enhance the lives of the pupils and, indeed, the colleagues around you.

IGCSEs – the easy option?

And so what of the latest attack on schools which choose IGCSEs? The critics forget that some State schools choose them before the Government decided not to include them in annual exam statistics. They also forget that most independent schools chose them not because they were easier but because they were harder and prepared pupils better for the rigours of A level. Many IGCSES, being international in focus, have a broader curriculum to master. Julie Robinson, the independent schools’ council (ISC) general secretary, puts it succinctly: ‘Schools in the independent sector choose the subject qualifications their pupils sit based on the intrinsic educational quality of the course content. They have a responsibility to ensure pupils are fully prepared for their next steps in life, achieving qualifications that are well-respected and valued by universities and employers…Historically, independent schools opted for IGCSEs due to their rigour and reliability compared with GCSEs, before the introduction of recent reforms, which are still being rolled out’.

Contribution to the UK economy

Others, much more eloquent than me, have made the case for independent schools retaining their educational charitable status – the partnership with local State schools, clubs, societies and community projects speak volumes for their real world ethos – but for those who listen only to economics one statistic stands out: the annual saving to the UK tax payer through the education of children and young people in the independent sector is approximately £3.5 billion. (Please note that if independent schools are drummed out of existence then these pupils will need State educating…) Moreover, independent schools contributed £11.6 billion to the UK economy in 2017 and supported 257,000 jobs. (Figures such as these can be confirmed via the ISC website and RSAcademics, a specialist educational consultancy which works across the State and independent sectors.)

I conclude where I started, with some lyrics from John Lennon’s ‘And so this is Christmas’, and the hope that the New Year is indeed a good one in which we find more to unite than to divide ourselves across the whole of education:

And so happy Christmas, For black and for white, For yellow and red ones, Let’s stop all the fight

Less is more!

A Happy New Year to the readers (reader?) of this blog! I trust you have had a festive break with some refreshment with family and friends. A time to reflect, too, and to make resolutions.

All that stuff

I am getting ready to move house early in the New Year and have recently spent many a happy hour / day / week / month sifting through the boxes, trunks and bags in my garage. Why on earth have I kept all those history books from university days, those teaching notes from the early 1980s and all those video cassettes from yesteryear? I accept that I am a bit of a hoarder (I prefer to say that as an historian I’m interested in sifting through the past and everything has a value) but there has to come a limit – and, besides, my wife has ordered me to downsize!

Gifts galore

These thoughts of excess and surplus are, I suppose, natural at Christmas time when most of us will no doubt receive many more presents than we really need or want. As a teacher I am extremely grateful to all those pupils who have given me cards, boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine over the years – but I have to confess to ‘re-gifting’ some of those Belgian sweets and bottles of Scotch. (I know, as a Scot, I really should like whisky!) On a different scale, but similarly thought-provoking, I read recently that 200,000 books are published annually in the UK. The Times literary editor, Robbie Millen, wrote an exasperated piece asking people to kindly stop sending books to him as he was overwhelmed. Apparently, with so many books clamouring for our attention, it’s much easier to award them ‘nervous little pats on the head rather than to separate wheat from chaff’ (as DJ Taylor has written in the I newspaper). Moreover, there were 821 films on release in the UK last year (equating to 16 per week) and so surely way beyond the capacity of mere mortals, let along film critics, to assimilate, evaluate (or even enjoy)! Perhaps ‘less is more’?

Plastic pollution

I expect that most of us who have seen some of the harrowing images from Blue Planet 2 (and other Nature programmes) will agree that where plastic is concerned, less is indeed more – more sea creatures and, in time, more health for humans, too. A simple walk around our local woodlands or seashore, even a glance in the roadside ditch, reveals extensive amounts of waste and litter. (Can anyone understand the mentality behind those who apparently throw away tin cans and coffee cups with thoughtless abandon?) Less is more beauty and, again, greater health to the planet. The recent Government decision to increase the cost of single-use plastic bags is to be applauded.

Less stuff and more for all

DJ Taylor, in the aforementioned newspaper, commented on a further concern: …the more stuff becomes available the more the overall quality of things on offer starts to sink…the greater the volume of stuff brought before our eyes the less able we are to discriminate between good and bad, to work out what we really want to watch, read or listen to and establish whether it shapes up. Taylor’s advice for a New Year resolution is that we buy less of everything as we may then enjoy what’s left all the more. This seems to me to be a sound approach but I hope it’s not simply for what it might do for ourselves but also for others. One present I particularly appreciated year on year from a parent was this: a donation made (in place of a ‘thing’) in the School’s name to ‘Oxfam unwrapped’ to help pay for a child’s education in a developing part of the world. Here ‘more’ will definitely be ‘more and not less’!”

Every blessing for 2019…

Dirt can be good for you!

I can remember as a young boarder at Drumley House Prep School in the Ayrshire countryside, regularly coming into the ‘boot room’ in the Main House and being ticked off by Matron for the state of my muddy knees and ‘play clothes’. I always sensed an underlying attitude of good humour and tolerance, however, and I can’t ever remember being punished for my muddy adventures. In fact, we were encouraged to spend time ‘in the woods’ in the school grounds building dens, climbing trees and playing active games. I can also remember the whole school being marshalled onto a newly cleared piece of ground that was being prepared as a cricket field and asked to pick up any stones left lying on the surface. I am sure today that there would have been cries of ‘child labour’ and ‘my rights’ but back then in the 1960s I only remember the fun had from collecting odds and ends including one of my earliest prize possessions – a very tarnished George III shilling dated 1819.

Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child

In her book published in 2016, Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child, Dr Maya Shetreat-Klein advocates contact with the microbes present in soil, saying dirt could prevent early-onset health issues. “Parents today are keeping their children away from the things that are critical to their health,” suggests Dr Shetreat-Klein. “We are sanitising their lives with cleaning products, pesticides and antibiotics.” (A more recent study also promoted the habit of mothers of new-born babies sucking their child’s bottle, rather than sterilising them, so as to pass on healthy, motherly, antibodies!)

Education Secretary, Damien Hinds

I was delighted that just last week the Education Secretary, Damien Hinds, announced he will launch a ‘bucket list’ of life goals for children. Activities include outdoor activities such as tree climbing, sleeping under canvas and exploring a cave. “Bluntly”, Mr Hinds told the I newspaper, “it is about doing stuff that doesn’t involve looking at a screen. It’s about getting out and about”. He is advocating tree climbing to grow character and build resilience.

Tree climbing is good for you

I have just retired as Headmaster of Ballard School on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire. At Ballard we encourage the climbing of trees, running around in the grounds, the adventures of camping and trekking and the playing of old-fashioned games such as ‘tag’ and conkers, the making of dens and the kicking around of a football with friends ‘just for fun’. One of the prospective parents I met before I had even started my first term at Ballard ten years ago told me how they had just popped into Lymington Hospital to have one of their children checked over after a fall. One of the nurses enquired about their school choice (they were moving to the New Forest) and when they said they intended to visit Ballard, the nurse said (in an approving way I am relieved to say), ‘Oh, that’s the school which lets them fall out of trees’!

Mud, glorious, mud

I have to admit to having been a little cross with pupils who came off the fields after the lunch break with mud on their trousers or their shoes. My thoughts, of course, were with Mum or Dad at home who will likely have to wash the offending article of clothing (or perhaps in the most modern of households the children play their part in the cleaning!). I hope, however, that underlying my stern exterior lay the Prep School boy who rather enjoyed the great outdoors and the dirt and grime which went with it! With a grandson who attended a forest school nursery until recently I have seen life moving full circle.

I’d better follow Mr Hinds’ advice and close down my screen now and get out on the forest trail…even though it’s raining hard!

Back to basics and ‘chalk and talk’?

‘No evidence’ that enjoyable lessons help pupils?

At a time when there is so much Brexit ballyhoo in the Press, I very nearly missed the article last week in the ‘I’ newspaper with its beguiling headline: ‘No evidence’ that enjoyable lessons help pupils learn.

The age of the Banda machine

I am immediately suspicious when I see something in single inverted commas – clearly the ‘school sceptics’ are at work (see what I did there?). My educational antennae are set all the more aquiver when in the first line of the article I find the word ‘myth’ not now inside single inverted commas but within two sets of these over-used indicators! Richard Vaughan writes: The belief that lessons should be made enjoyable for pupils to boost academic achievement is based on a “myth”, according to research. All of a sudden my efforts over the past 38 years to produce coloured Banda worksheets and maps (aka a spirit duplicator invented in 1923), in my best handwriting, to relieve the tedium of monochrome Gestetner copies (first used in 1879) are deemed to be a waste of time. Those hours I spent carefully substituting coloured ink sheets, one after the other, and then reproducing sheets with that delicious smelling lubricant (just heavenly for pupils) were actually null and void. I should have given my hours to honing my most commanding voice, improving my blackboard writing skills, and choosing my nattiest ties to ensure my captive audience sitting in their bare-walled classroom would at least keep their eyes fixed on me.

Computer games, apps and online resources

Gone, too, should be the industry of computer games and apps, whiteboards and video clips in the face of the research carried out for the Centre for Education Economics. (I wonder if the clue is in this imposing title?) A more traditional approach to education, championed by Michael Gove, Nick Gibb et al since 2010, is being giving top marks. The author of this research, Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren, pours much chalk dust on child-centred approaches: The idea that positive emotions and achievement go hand in hand has become deeply entrenched within the education system. Indeed, it is still commonly believed that it is necessary to make learning ‘invigorating’ (there we go again – those pesky inverted commas) for learning to take place at all. Yet our research has found that there is little rigorous evidence in favour of this assumption.

Engaging lessons

Ah! A small chink in the research appears: ‘rigorous evidence’ (sorry, my emphasis this time). My mind flits to the Modern Languages’ classroom next to the Head’s study in my last school where the pupils were invariably excited and interested as the IPads came out, the headphones went on, and the individualised learning started to engage them. (Surely ‘engage’ is the key word here?) Having been so absorbed, the pupils would then chant their vocabulary, practise their pronunciation and even enjoy having a Skype conversation in a language other than their own with pupils in far-flung lands.

My memory now stirs as I recall several ‘learning walks’ (sorry for those pesky commas – I want you to notice this modern? term) during which I come across a diminutive History teacher standing on a desk brandishing a ruler as she led Harold’s doomed forces to quell the Norman invader, the chemistry class in the corridor having exploded yet another test tube leaving their lab filled with green smoke and the English teacher re-enacting scenes from MacBeth outside in the woods complete with mock battles, mysterious blasted heaths and haunting sleep walks. Whatever the research seems to suggest, these pupils were engaged, excited and enthralled by their learning.

Chicken pox

I have just returned from my four-and-a half year old grandson’s house. He was home from school with chicken pox. In amongst the chasing games, the imaginative Lego pirates and the football, I was amazed at how easy it was to engage him in reading using a variety of online and interactive programs, and how effective a booklet on writing skills was in helping him form his letters. Snakes and Ladders was great fun and also hugely useful in learning his numbers and, moreover, this and other games helped him understand the importance of rules, winning and losing. (I was more often than not having to learn how to lose gracefully.)

All I can say, therefore, is that whilst the Centre for Education Economics has no doubt carried out some very useful research, I do hope that it is understood alongside the wealth of attested evidence from hard-working and creative teachers within schools today which more than amply demonstrates that interesting, informed and interactive lessons enable pupils to engage with their learning and to succeed where a diet of chalk and talk teacher-centred lectures will not so readily enable them to do so – even if they sometimes do have their place in today’s classroom.

Stress busting

Teacher stress

We have just had ‘stress in the workplace day’ and the educational Press has again been full of statistics about the impact of increasing workloads on teachers and other professionals. A YouGov survey in 2017 found that 75% of teachers in the UK reported symptoms of stress (including anxiety, depressions and panic attacks) compared with just 62% of the population as a whole.

Research

The Times Educational Supplement last November brought matters into sharp focus as follows:

Teaching is among the most stressful jobs you can do in Britain, according to new health and safety statistics. The latest figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that in the teaching profession there were 2,460 cases of work-related stress per 100,000 workers.

This was twice the average rate across all industries of 1,230 cases per 100,000 workers in the three-year period averaged over 2014-15 to 2016-17.

“Stress is more prevalent in public service industries, such as education, human health and social care work activities and public administration and defence,” the report states.

It added that previous surveys had found the predominant cause of stress was workload – in particular, tight deadlines. Other causes were too much pressure or responsibility, a lack of managerial support, organisational changes, violence and role uncertainty.

“Work-related stress, depression or anxiety continues to represent a significant ill health condition in the workforce of Great Britain,” the report concludes.

A recent DfE report on teachers’ decisions to leave teaching found workload was the single most common reason – cited by 75 per cent of ex-teachers as the reason they quit the profession. Changes in policy were the second biggest cause.

I have to say that in my 38 years of teaching, I have indeed come across several colleagues who have had time off for stress or who have ‘battled on’ despite being under tremendous pressure. I believe that these instances are increasing and thus they align with this research. A few years ago I went through a particularly stressful period as a Head – brought on, I feel, by a combination of ‘issues’ to do with school parents and their high expectations (unrealistic in some cases) together with a number of tricky staffing concerns. This experience led me to consider, along with some medical intervention, stress-busting / minimising approaches.

Tips

I hasten to add that a degree of stress is, of course, healthy and like most things in life we are looking to reach a balance. My response to my own anxiety was not revolutionary but, I believe, helped me manage the inevitable pressures that came with my job and also with teaching in general. I stopped checking work emails after 9.00 pm, for example, and, indeed, avoided the computer for any reason after this time at night. Furthermore, on holiday I deliberately avoided all emails and made use of the handy ‘out of office’ function on my computer. (My wife is a very good partner in reminding me about this should I be otherwise tempted!) Just this week I heard in a report for Breakfast News on BBC that the ‘French approach’ to emails could be considered in the workplace: no email should be sent to a subordinate outside ‘normal working hours’. Clearly for teachers ‘normal working hours’ needs defining and so perhaps this could apply between 7.00pm and 7.00am?

I try to get to bed before 10.00pm rather than waiting to watch the News first before retiring for the night. In my workplace I strove to look for opportunities to delegate work and, yes, to trust others to do things better than me! Even if in my view they didn’t manage this, it is their learning experience that’s important. In addition to this, I very consciously tried not to dwell on imaginary conversations ahead of ‘difficult meetings’: it’s fine to plan for these and consider scenarios but as I walked home of an evening (and this woodland walk was a privilege to savour), I very consciously tried to leave them behind recognising that there’s nothing further I can do until the next day – or after the weekend.

Why worry?

We will all have things which suit us personally and fit with our lifestyles to reduce stress further (and for me this includes prayer and Christian fellowship – as well as time with my wife and family). It’s tremendously important, however, to look for those ‘little extras’ which we can do (or stop doing) when the going gets too tough. This may mean a conversation with your GP but will also involve wise advice from those who know us best along with, perhaps, the tips above over online habits and self-control with our endless ‘what if’ thoughts. As someone has pointed out, 90+% of the things we worry about never happen – and so why worry in the first place?

Retirement – rough or smooth?

The retirement letter

‘Dear Mr James’, a civil service department chief wrote to a recently retired tax inspector, ‘Thank you for your 46 years’ service for the Department. In this time, you have had 12 days’ sick leave. As you retire, please make sure you return your leather case and pens. Yours sincerely…’

I am not making this up! This was indeed the retirement letter the father of a close family member received (admittedly a few years ago now). He had had a good farewell party but now his life time employer wanted back his monogrammed leather case (he’d had two in his working life) together with the biros that remained. He was not permitted back inside the office and was thus, effectively, cut off from his former colleagues and workplace.

I am sure that some who retire will be happy being as far away as possible from where they had previously worked and may even appreciate no longer seeing some, if not all, of their former work mates. I can’t answer for Mr James above (not his real name), but after 46 years in one place I am sure that the type of severance he experienced was not only sudden and severe but also distressing, disturbing and needlessly harsh.

The importance of community

I retired as a Headmaster at the end of August this year. I still live within ten minutes’ walk of my former school and continue to bump into colleagues, governors, pupils and parents as I shop locally, play sport and attend church. Like Mr James I had a super ‘send-off’ (several, in fact, from a wonderful spread of people within my school family) but, thankfully unlike Mr James, I did not receive a letter requesting the return of my school leather case (aka mobile ‘phone and laptop – already handed back). I did experience, however, the pain of being separated from a community I had been part of for nine years – and I still feel the separation keenly. (My ‘leather case’ moment was having my request for the birth dates of colleagues, so that I could continue to send cards to each annually, turned down owing to GDPR regulations!)

Don’t misunderstand me: my former school has been very tolerant of me continuing to maintain some contact via the weekly parent and staff hockey team (I’m the ‘Aged Al’ who trots up and down the wing receiving the occasional friendly pass) and they have been very kind with invitations to key events. My successor and other senior staff have also been more than approachable and friendly. The ‘problem’ is partly me (and my sensitivities) and partly the inevitable process involved in leaving an institution after many years at the helm and my determination to steer clear and thus not ‘queer the pitch’ for the new Head and management that have replaced my regime.

Schools can be families, too

An organisation such as a school is indeed a family – and where I worked we regularly referred to it as such. I genuinely miss the pupils and having an insight into their progress (hence the delight last weekend when I met a senior pupil on a train. I had to restrain myself from being too intrusive). I wonder, with a professional interest, how certain appointments are faring – former colleagues in new positions of responsibility and pupils who are now leading the school as prefects. I also miss taking a caring and prayerful interest in the lives of the teachers and other staff, many of whom I appointed and some who allowed me to play a small part in their lives – and not only at school.

There is no easy answer to this loss of a collegiate community, except to encourage other employers to ensure that the occasionally painful part of transition from work to retirement (no matter the position held) is remembered and thought through sensitively. As I have said, I have been fortunate in my former employer and community. No doubt time and distance will bring some more balm: I’m moving to another part of the country once the solicitors in the property chain get their act together – no doubt the substance of another blog! I continue to feel a part of the school communities in which I have served, and especially the two where I have been Head, and so I hope each will also continue to indulge me with occasional news and invitations – and remember other staff who have ‘moved on’ and still feel a part of the wider school family.