The Chronicle 2020 - 21

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Looking Back to Look Forwards Mrs Gorman, Head, reflects on her first two years at Abbots’ Hill and leading during a global pandemic Instead of spending the next two minutes and thirty seconds of your time reading about the difficulties of the last 18 months, I prefer to reflect on the so-called Covid silver-linings. It has been a time of ‘firsts’ in many ways. Not only was this my first two years as Head at Abbot’s Hill but, since my first day in January 2020, we have learnt an entirely new vocabulary – fogging, zoom and social-distancing are now part of everyday parlance, I had to work from home, I became my own childrens’ teacher. The list goes on. School firsts These ‘firsts’ have been firsts for everyone in our school community. Managing the emotions and expectations of staff, pupils and parents while rolling out an online school made the early stages of the pandemic very demanding indeed for school leaders everywhere. Another first for me was facing an ISI Inspection after 6 days as Head. The outcome – Excellent – was testament to what I know to be true about this school. The human side On a more human, less operational level, many people all around the world and close to home have suffered loss – personal and financial. Lives have been turned upside down and we must never forget that. I have listened with interest to Mark Carney’s Reith lectures where he asks us to reflect on 2020 and to consider what it has taught us about ‘value’. Referring to Oscar Wilde’s famous aphorism, he suggests we had become a society that ‘know[s] the price of everything but the value of nothing’. This struck a chord with me because in joining Abbot’s Hill, I knew I was joining a school whose values are in the right place. I was therefore determined at the start of 2020 to more clearly articulate and reaffirm these core values and to re-frame them in light of future skills, outreach and partnerships in our immediate local community and our wider professional community, and we have done just that. So, looking back, I would like to turn my attention to some of the ways that I have simply been amazed by the professionalism of my team, the agility with which we went online and the maintenance of our school community – which has been our priority throughout. Normality in a time of uncertainty has been the watchword. Staying connected We received overwhelming support from our parents for our online provision Abbot’s Hill ConnectED with satisfaction ratings consistently over 90%. Perhaps one reason for this was that the promotion of balance and positive mental health was central to our planning. Ensuring that everyone felt a part of the School community was our guiding principle and so important for wellbeing during these unprecedented times. We therefore re-wrote our timetables to ensure that pupils could work away from the screen, while ensuring face-to-

face delivery of lessons where appropriate. Assemblies, tutor time or 1:1 tutorials with teachers followed registration and slightly shortened lessons allowed for breaks and movement away from a desk to go and jump on a trampoline or play with the family dog. After feedback from parents, we aligned lunch time across the school so that families could eat together and made sure learning was as active as it was rigorous. ConnectEd and InspirEd: Remote learning success Teachers worked very hard to find new ways of working and the practical subjects such as Music, Drama, PE and Food and Nutrition continued unabated. Even science experiments were conducted on-line, with pupils undertaking and recording their own work to share with the class. There was so much spontaneous creativity and the use of Apps such as Tapestry, SeeSaw and the G-suite enabled innovation on an unprecedented scale. We also took advantage of the time gained from the cancellation of external exams to organise a rigorous post-half term bridging course organised for our Year 11 pupils. Devised by our Head of Careers, Liz Cross, the InspirED programme proved to be excellent preparation for the transition to 6th Form and College life is set to continue, post-Covid. Back to school When we returned to school, I was impressed once more by th determination of my staff to create a safe and healthy learning environment for our pupils. As with every other school, the looming threat of a Covid-19 shutdown meant that we had to be ready, poised to pivot and flip the switch on remote learning once more. Meeting challenges with positive change Managing this Coronavirus pandemic has certainly been a tremendous challenge for schools across the country, but we are proud to have met these head-on at Abbot’s Hill. Rather than stopping or slowing down our efforts as a school, the pandemic has seen us – if you’ll pardon the phrase – draw breath and launch afresh with enthusiasm, creativity, determination and most important of all, teamwork. Collaboration and communication between teachers, pupils, and parents means that the future truly came into the present with more bespoke, tailored, truly digital learning. Partnership work, sports leadership coaching, school productions that have become film productions, online parents’ evenings…the list goes on. And on. Our digital strategy has been rocket-fuelled and I can’t wait to see where that leads us as an organisation. I think, perhaps, this may have been a highlight of the year for me. The way the school has come together – fired by those core values of integrity, compassion, collaboration. The emotional intelligence of this school is high. Alongside other skills that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront such as active learning, creativity, complex problem-solving and systems analysis, emotional intelligence, kindness and leadership are defined by the World Economic Forum (January 2020) as vital future skills. Abbot’s Hill is leading the way in building a community rich with these characteristics. Our school spirit – the founding values of the Baird sisters of strength and character – which perhaps nowadays we call resilience or maybe tenacity – are alive and well. So, while this has been a year of firsts, it has brought us back full circle to our purpose.

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