EDUCATION NEWS

How have your children managed at school over the past year of disruption? We ask Rosie Allen, who is approaching the end of her first year as Head of The Paragon School, what are her lasting memories of a year like no other...

With so many different emotions and perspectives. It has been an extraordinary year of ups and downs globally, so picking one overriding sentiment to sum up my first year as Head is hard. However, my reflections do keep returning to the incredibly strong sense of community at The Paragon, and the way in which everyone has pulled together for the good of the school and its children.

Keeping a sense of momentum. Obviously Covid has presented more than its fair share of challenges to everyone in our community. However the main challenge, and one which we have met head on, is ensuring that we have done more than just navigate a pandemic this year. The school has also moved forward, and there are exciting plans for the future. It has been a challenge to remain focussed on continual improvement, but we have done so. There are exciting times ahead!

With a greater focus on learner behaviours than ever before. At The Paragon, we deliver our curriculum in a way which ensures the children develop habits of mind which will stay with them for life. Characteristics such as perseverance, resilience, independence and curiosity form our ‘Paragon Wheel’ and underpin everything that goes on in classrooms and around the school. The experiences of Covid have served to underline the importance of the way the children learn, furnishing them with these life skills.

Utterly brilliantly. Their resilience and, quite frankly, joy through the various ebbs and flows of the pandemic has been nothing short of breathtaking. They have found the fun in everything and worked their socks off under such difficult circumstances. Not only that, but our recent assessments have shown that great progress has been made in their learning. In spite of everything, it has been a successful year for each of them and we are all incredibly proud of their resilience and determination.

To answer yes would be a huge understatement! But the pandemic has also been an opportunity for me to get to know the school very quickly, and so I have been able to progress some plans for the future already.

To ensure that every child who comes through our school experiences their own journey of limitless discovery, and to further embed our core values in everything we do. The Paragon is an amazing school with many strengths, and our new vision and values will build on these to provide all our pupils with the very best experience of preparatory education. We have plans to significantly extend our outdoor learning programme, to further develop our cocurricular programme so that it provides each child with expansive opportunities, and to build on our already strong community to instil in the children a real sense of global awareness as they grow into adulthood. We will continue to deliver a wonderfully broad and enriched curriculum in the classroom, with an emphasis on keeping alive in every child their natural thirst for learning. I have always said that academic success comes as a bi-product of happy, engaged children and The Paragon has that magical quality which will make this a reality.

A prospective parent who visited the school recently described it as being like ‘childhood bottled.’ I think this sums it up. Anyone who has visited The Paragon, or indeed knows it by reputation, will understand it when I say there is a magic to the school. It’s not just the setting. It runs deeply through the ways and traditions of the school, in the relationships between pupils, staff and parents and in the wonderful environment which has been created for the children. I very much see my role as stewarding this magic, and ensuring that we keep it alive and thriving.

That our pupils are allowed to be children. There is so much joy, adventure and purpose for them on their educational journey with us, and their time at The Paragon gives them a fully immersive educational experience. They have time and space to develop their skills and talents, to find out who they really are and what they have to offer the world. Ultimately, each child leaves our school as an even better version of themselves, and I think children and parents alike appreciate the natural and individual growth that The Paragon allows.

It’s a journey because our approach embraces an understanding that each lesson, day, week and so on is part of a life experience for each child which begins before they join us and continues long after they have left us. Limitless because the way we teach, learn and interact as a community places no limits on what each of the children has the potential to achieve. And discovery because the children foster curiosity, creativity and a sense of adventure in all they do. Put together, it places a Paragon education at the heart of childhood, creating happy and kind children who have self-belief and an aspiration to play their part in the world. n

Wells Cathedral School’s production of Les Misérables was staged at Strode Theatre

Damian Todres

In a world that holds unprecedented uncertainty and change, how best do we equip our learners of today to adapt and thrive in an unknowable tomorrow? What is the priority for them, artificial or human intelligence? Damian Todres, Director of Drama at Wells Cathedral School, argues that drama may hold the key...

Consider the experience of being a child in the 21st century: tentatively exploring ‘who I am’ through the glaring lens of relentless social media feeds, with the emotional burdens of ‘always on' connectivity, commentary and unprecedented self-comparison. Add to this the worries of climate change, perpetual political upheaval and the arrival of a game-changing global pandemic. Such psychological pressures are compounded by the rapid pace of technological change, whereby more than half of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new jobs that don’t yet exist. How can our young people be better prepared to cope in such a world?

An indication of this direction of travel can be seen in the World Economic Forum’s recent Future of Jobs’ report, where we see employers prioritising ‘creativity’ and ‘emotional intelligence’ as capabilities they wish to see in their recruits; these more ‘human’ skills balancing what the current digital trends of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are unable to bear.

So as a result of the cultural and employment challenges facing our young learners today it seems that we may need to re-evaluate the kinds of knowledge and capacities that empower them to thrive in an unknowable future. And here we come to an old idea:

Aristotle’s concept of ‘phronesis’, or ‘practical wisdom’, is an intelligence gathered from practical action and creativity that ultimately informs a person how to ‘be’ in the world. Concerned with not only the ‘head’ (what to know), but crucially, how to integrate this with the ‘hand’ (how to act) as well as the ‘heart’ (how to feel), Aristotle here emphasises the significance of not necessarily ‘what’ to know, but ‘how’ to know.

So how do we provide opportunities to facilitate practical wisdom and emotional intelligence in our schools? I believe that teaching and learning drama is a compelling answer. Through embodying characters from other times and places, drama utilises the universality of human experience to imaginatively uncover shared emotional and personal connections. It is able to further develop perspectives between ‘self’ and ‘other’ due to its inherently social and collaborative modes of working, thus encouraging empathic thinking and behaviour through a consideration of multiple perspectives. During this iterative process, creativity and imagination help to establish a transformative space of possibility that supports farreaching benefits such as kindness, healing and understanding –qualities that are transferable to the wider life of the child.

Not only do all of these traits explain how drama is able to foster practical wisdom, the discipline explicitly teaches what many consider to be one of the most urgent capacities in education: empathy. Originating from the German philosophical term Einfühlung (‘feeling into’) and the Greek root ‘pathos’, which translates as emotion, suffering and pity; it is now understood to mean the ability to move beyond ourselves in order to meaningfully understand the feelings and experiences of others.

This facility to empathise holds profound value in developing a citizen of the 21st century and arguably enables the skills of collaboration, people management and negotiation necessary to be a success in modern life. Furthermore, the late and much-lamented educationalist Ken Robinson made an urgent call for empathy as the next educational disruptor, as he believed that many of the problems our children face are rooted in failures of empathy. In this way, the ability to ‘feel into’ is able to facilitate the development of a young person experiencing challenges into an agile, resourceful and resilient adult.

As a drama teacher, this concern with practical wisdom and empathy has led me to pursue my own research which focuses on dramaturgical strategies that enable pupils to develop and deepen their foundational human capacity to imagine the world of another; a competency that may help them to adapt and thrive together in the modern world of an unknowable future. n

Wells Cathedral School's Brass musicians at The Two Moors Festival

Urban ecologist Professor David Goode looks back at our modern-day connection with the environment, assesses how nature in recent years has become more centre stage, and explains why this is meaningful for the future

Throughout my working life as an ecologist I have been acutely aware of two critical impacts on the global environment. One is the enormous scale and rate of species extinction, the second is climate change. Both have intensified with each passing decade. Both result directly from human activities. From a global perspective it is clear that human actions continue to have a disastrous effect on natural ecosystems. So it will be no surprise to hear that I can become despondent. But I am recently becoming more optimistic.

For several years in the UK we have seen growing concern about environmental matters, with increased recognition of the value of nature to humanity. Creating greater connection between people and nature has become a major feature of the environmental agenda, spawning a wealth of new initiatives from local residents’ groups and primary school activities right through to local and national government.

How has this come about? Television documentaries, notably Sir David Attenborough’s series Planet Earth, no doubt played a part in raising public consciousness of environmental problems. Blue Planet II was the most-watched television show in the UK in 2017, with more than 14 million viewers. Any bookseller will tell you there has also been a huge surge in ‘nature writing’, with a large number of new and distinguished authors involved. They include academics, naturalists, farmers and journalists who have promoted a climate of enthusiasm for nature that is beginning to permeate society across many different fields. The quality of the literature in this genre is a major driving force. There are spellbinding tales for younger readers too, such as local writer David Almond’s Bone Music which explores long-established deep connections between ourselves and nature.

The value of nature in promoting health an d well-being, including mental health, is also well-established. The NHS has links with environmental centres to which patients are referred by their GPs to take part in activities that allow them to ‘regain their own health’. The Eden Project in Cornwall is one such centre. Others are specifically designed for people to connect with nature in towns and cities. At a local level there are numerous opportunities for people to connect with nature, such as by joining natural history society field meetings, or joining a group to listen to the dawn chorus. They can even participate in citizen science projects monitoring changes in the distribution of species. Apps can now be used to explore local wildlife sites and grants are available to improve access to nature and encourage people to get involved. Here in Bath we have benefited from grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Bathscape Project, a major project relating to the landscape of woods and meadows that form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, also for Sydney Gardens and Smallcombe Cemetery.

The second issue is climate change. I first read about it in the 1960s when it was referred to as the greenhouse effect. Although the issue had hardly entered the public arena, climate scientists and ecologists were already clear that the earth’s atmosphere was getting warmer as a result of the increased concentration of CO2 due to burning of coal and oil. I predicted in 1982 that there would be severe environmental consequences within the next 50 years. The wider public woke up to the problem in the 1980s and decisions were taken at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 for countries to limit emission of greenhouse gases. Sadly, emissions have continued to rise over the past 30 years and are still rising. Without immediate action to reduce emissions it will become impossible to prevent an increase in temperature exceeding 1.5°C, a goal that would prevent the most damaging effects of warming.

However, I am heartened by the new awareness that has spread across the world since 2018. Greta Thunberg has had an astonishing impact since she embarked on her school strike for climate outside the Stockholm Parliament in August that year. She mobilised millions of young people to take action to persuade governments to take climate change seriously as a global crisis. In a series of speeches to world leaders she made it clear through plain speaking that they have failed to address the simple truth that use of fossil fuel has to stop. That means now. “If the emissions have to stop, then we must stop the emissions. To me that is black or white. There are no grey areas when it comes to survival. Either we go on as a civilization or we don’t” (Thunberg, 2019). Our local Council, B&NES, declared a Climate Crisis in March 2019. This year the new US President Joe Biden has put climate change at the top of his agenda and is already pressing world leaders to take real action. This year is crucial. The UK will chair the UN Climate Summit in November. We have been waiting too long for positive action. This time it has to happen.

Coronavirus struck in January 2020. Can we ever forget the extraordinary effect of the first lockdown in March? My first impression was that air pollution in Bath had suddenly abated, the sky was clear and unusually blue, and at night it was filled with stars. The Milky Way was magnificent. But for me it was the silence that was most profound when we first experienced the lack of background noise. It was eerily quiet with hardly any road traffic, trains or other sounds of the city. The only sounds were the birds. Their songs seemed to be enhanced by the stillness. Many people commented that they had never noticed them before. Others asked why the birds were singing so loudly. Most striking, of course, was the absence of people. The centre of Bath was suddenly deserted and even on our local walks in Widcombe we hardly saw a soul. Everyone was indoors. It seemed at times as if we were living through a science fiction drama.

Animals reacted in different ways. Even in the first days of lockdown there were reports of wildlife taking advantage of the absence of people to invade towns and cities. A herd of feral Kashmiri goats hit the headlines browsing in gardens along streets in the centre of Llandudno, and there were reports of wild boar running amok in several Italian

Bug hunt on Troopers Hill in Bristol, 2009

This meadow near Macaulay Buildings is covered in a swathe of cowslips in spring. Alongside is one of the oldest woodlands in Bath, Smallcombe Wood Special facilities are provided for minibeasts at the Lyncombe Hill Meadows

cities having invaded from surrounding forests. In contrast, the gulls that nest on rooftops in our city centre seemed nonplussed by the absence of people. Small groups flew around in disarray, frantically searching for scraps of food, all to no avail. Very few pairs raised young in 2020, partly because of lockdown but probably also as a result of the extremely hot weather in spring and early summer.

During lockdown I made a recording of the dawn chorus in Bath. The performance was unusually long, well over an hour instead of the usual 20–30 minutes. I recorded 24 different species that morning. Sometimes it was a cacophony of blackbirds, robins and wrens; at other times songthrushes and blackcaps dominated the chorus. Intermittently I heard the fluty notes of a nuthatch, and at times the deep croak of a raven from its nest nearby. There were even the soft tinkling voices of goldcrests, our smallest British bird. The recording was broadcast on our local Bath radio Imperial Voice which prompted many people to get in touch asking for a commentary to identify the species, which I was happy to provide. You can hear it on the Bath Natural History Society website.

One of the most profound effects of lockdown has been the realisation by many people that nature is all around us. Certainly people have appreciated all the parks and green spaces available in Bath, from the formality of Parade Gardens, or the green expanses of Victoria Park and Bathwick Meadows, to the wildness of the Skyline walk. We are not alone. The Office for National Statistics reports a huge increase in use of greenspace during the pandemic. Nearly 40% of people said nature was more important than ever to their wellbeing. National media have also recognised that links with nature have been crucial for both physical and mental health. For some, lockdown meant getting to know your local patch, gaining an intimate knowledge of all that nature offers. The spring of 2020 was exceptional. In The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus (Hodder Studio) one of the authors claims that it was the loveliest spring in living memory. This book brings together the experiences of three well-known nature writers as they explored their particular local patches in southern England. It is a glorious account of spring, in which exhilaration abounds. Another book that captures the spirit of our time is A Song of Gladness (Two Hoots) by Michael Morpurgo and Emily Gravett. Subtitled ‘A story of hope for us and our planet’ this is a children’s story that shows us the beauty of nature and what is at stake.

In Bath some local communities have been going further to encourage nature and make it more accessible. A local group has leased Lyncombe Hill Fields from the city council to do precisely that. Paths have been laid, trees planted, benches constructed, bird boxes erected and this nature area is taking on a new life. Local communities can make changes happen.

If you are stimulated to learn more about nature in Bath I would encourage you to join the Bath Natural History Society. We should be delighted to welcome new members. n

• Bath Natural History Society: bathnats.org.uk

A nuthatch bringing food to its nest

Iwas a county gymnast at the age of 19 when my knee swelled up and I could only walk with crutches. Over the next 20 years I had six operations, took heavy painkillers and was often bedridden with pain. After the sixth operation my consultant said “No more operations, I’m referring you to the Rheumatology clinic”.

Prescribed a cocktail of powerful antiinflammatories, which, despite making me feel very unwell, brought down the swelling dramatically, meant that I could dispense with crutches, though I was still in pain. I was told I’d be taking anti-inflammatory drugs for life, so I began to investigate natural alternatives.

When I explained to the rheumatologist the natural changes I was making, he was unimpressed. I told him I had challenged myself to do a triathlon in two years’ time, to which he replied, “No chance”.

But my body increasingly began to wake up again and respond. Two years later, at the age of 46 I successfully completed my first triathlon.

I’m now 48. It’s been four years since I’ve taken any medication. My knee is fine, I’m pain-free and enjoy more mobility than since I was a teenager. The only reason I haven’t done more triathlons is because I’ve been studying for three Diplomas at CNM: Nutrition, Naturopathy and Herbal Medicine.

I learnt amazing facts at CNM which really helped my health. It turned out my blood had no Rheumatoid factor markers, so Rheumatoid Arthritis was never the problem. It was tough studying for three Diplomas and working full time, but everyone at CNM helped me. I now have three clinics offering my clients complete wellbeing packages. As a Naturopath I know the importance of giving the body what it needs for healing and returning to balance and inspiring people to make positive change in their lives.

I don’t have the words to express how much studying at CNM has changed my life.

Geoff Don

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