So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be a great, good fortune

And so we arrive at ‘the end of the most extraordinary term and school year we have ever known’, to quote Ms Sherlock. None of us this time last year could have foreseen just what was to unfold in 2020.

Normally there is something of a regular rhythm to the school year and while we have tried to keep that going and have succeeded to a certain extent, it has been significantly disrupted.

Initially the signs of the disruption to come were slow in unfolding. We jokingly began to elbow-bump each-other and places began to be closed so that visits were cancelled. My last school trip was with the Inters to Coventry Cathedral which was just ‘slipped under the wire’. I’m so glad it was!

Still, Covid19 seemed a long distance away and it was hard to believe that there was the possibility of school closure. However the signs were there as some pupils started self-isolating with their families and then the overseas boarders began last minute plans to return home. But it still came as a shock when the school closures announcement came from the government.

It was then the school went into overdrive as it moved online, setting up the systems to enable us to keep teaching and learning throughout the past two terms. It has certainly been a journey and we acknowledge that it has been more challenging for some than others.

For some what was initially seen as ‘an impediment’, has turned out ‘to be a great fortune’, and brought new insights and perspectives on our world. For others that ‘great fortune’ from the ‘impediment’ thrust upon them, is yet to be realised. We should not underestimate the pain of loss, isolation, relationship stresses and financial hardships that many have and are facing following this pandemic.

None of us will be the same again. Return to ‘normal’ cannot and should not be the same. Our experience of Covid19 and lockdown have wrought many changes but we are still ‘all in this together’ and as we gradually emerge to resume our lives, perhaps it is a ‘road’ that ‘has made all the difference’ to how we will live the rest of our lives.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Wishing you all a happy and blessed summer.

Mrs Crossley