By Peter Thackrey, Deputy Head (Pastoral)

I am very proud of students and colleagues for having successfully navigated the Spring Term together. It is always the most intense term and this term had the added rollercoaster of ever changing goalposts around COVID restrictions both nationally and on a school level. Over this short second half of term, there has certainly been a sense of students re-finding their way with all restrictions lifted, enabling them to gather together as a community in assemblies and experience handshaking. This week, students have particularly enjoyed the beautiful environment in which we live and learn, thanks to the glorious spring weather.

I am very grateful to all colleagues, but especially the teachers, tutors, counsellors, the Sports and Outdoor work teams, the cleaners, catering team, Health Centre team, school GPs, House Assistants, Head of Wellbeing Kirsten McLintock and Houseparents for supporting each child pastorally through the past two terms. Much of the pandemic for everyone has been necessarily reactive, but this term it has felt good to get back to proactive pastoral care with talks for parents on how to support young people around self-harm, raising awareness and how to work with the school around drugs, and most recently, study and revision techniques.

Last week I was able to build rapports with our local police liaison officers who had not been able to visit for two years. We went round the school and the boarding houses saying hello to students as we walked, discussing some of the challenges young people faced at Bedales and how we approach these challenges as a school. It was reassuring to hear that the volume we faced was much lower that elsewhere and the way in which we approached our behaviour policy with dialogue and clear boundaries was effective.

School Council have continued to meet each week to discuss both day to day issues as well as having a voice in strategic planning. Students also have a key part to play in recruitment where they have been interviewing new teachers – often asking harder questions than the adults! Finally, the stand out day was the rural refugee walk on Powell Day when we were able to come together as a school to walk, have space and time to talk and reflect on the world beyond us. This was a turning point from being often necessarily inward looking during the pandemic to now looking beyond ourselves and our community once more as we move forward.

I hope everyone has a very restful, enjoyable and productive (especially for the exam years) Easter holiday.