Good morning, Prep School family,
I hope you are all ok and well done, we made it to Friday! Another week of remote learning done and one week closer to this lockdown hopefully coming to an end.
I thought I would leave the last Bulletin of the week to my friends Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.
It was a grey day in the Hundred Acre Wood. Fat droplets of rain fell from the sky, and Pooh stood by the window and watched them fall, weighed down by the constant presence of his own thoughts.
“It feels a long road, right now,” he said at last; and Piglet, who was sitting on the sofa reading a book, looked up. “A long, painful road; and if I’m honest, Piglet: I really don’t know just how much more of this I can take.”
Piglet nodded his little head. “Yes. Yes, it is very hard right now,” he agreed.
“But when does it end?” burst out Pooh, in a voice that sounded like a sob.
Piglet paused, deep in thought.
“I suppose… it’s like climbing a mountain,” he said at last. “Like climbing a great, colossal mountain, that is larger than anything you and I have ever climbed in our lives. Standing at the foot of it, we can’t even see the summit. That’s how tall it is. But it’s in our path. There is no way forward but to climb to the top. And so we do. One tiny step at a time.
“At first, even though it’s strange and new, it almost feels quite easy. We’ve never climbed a mountain like this before, and so the novelty of it all keeps us going. We sing songs, to keep our spirits up, and take lots of photographs to share with our friends at home.
“But pretty soon the novelty wears off. The mountain is a dark and scary place. We miss our friends. We miss so many different things, that, frankly, we took for granted, because we never realised that a day might come when we might not have them anymore.
“But still we keep walking. One tiny step at a time. Towards the summit.”
“But what if the summit isn’t there?” burst out Pooh. “What if, all of this time, we keep walking and walking, and it just isn’t there?”
“The summit is there,” said Piglet, with a quiet confidence. “Oh, it’s definitely there. We can’t see it, because it peaks above the clouds. But it’s there.”
“I’m so tired,” said Pooh, his voice cracked and breaking. “I’m so, so tired.”
“I know,” said Piglet. “I am, too. And what we’ll find is that, some days, we’ll make really great progress, and we’ll walk ten, twenty, fifty steps closer to our goal.
“On other days, though, taking even one step forward might feel too much. And so we’ll stand still, and gather ourselves, until we feel strong enough to step forward once more.
“And then one day,” continued Piglet, “we’ll make one, great, glorious push upwards. We’ll trudge through the darkness, and the pain, feeling like this will never end…and then all of a sudden…there we are. Breaking through the clouds, reaching the summit of the mountain we thought we would never manage to climb. All around us, a sea of pure blue sky. And peace. Perfect peace.”
Pooh paused, lost for a moment in the vision of Piglet’s pure blue sky. The pattering of the rain against the window brought him back down to earth.
“I believe you, Piglet,” he said; and he really did. “But it just seems such a long way yet to climb.”
“And it is,” acknowledged Piglet. “It almost certainly is. But that’s why we keep on going.
“One tiny step at a time.”
#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek #HighclarePrepSchoolfamily #Hereforyou #Hereforeachother #Expressyourself
Days of the year theme: World Nutella Day, Wear Red Day, Chocolate Fondue Day and Western Monarch (a butterfly) Day.
Quote of the Day: “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong” – Joseph Chilton Pearce
Friendly February calendar task (this month’s activities are based on friendship)
*Show an active interest by asking questions when talking to someone
TOP’s weekly activity: Draw yourself as a super hero – what would your powers be? What would your costume look like? What would be your strength/weakness? What would your name be?
Life skill of the day: Clear the table after a meal
Joke of the day: Thank you to Aryan S – Yr4P
Did you hear about the race between the lettuce and the tomato?
The lettuce was winning so the tomato tried to ketchup!
Fact of the Day: Cats are not able to taste anything sweet.
Sleeps til Santa: 322 days!
Three things I’m looking forward to today (thanks to Mrs Hinch for the inspiration): Can you try this each day? Remember, it focuses your mind on the positive and reminds us to show gratitude for things, no matter how small!
Today I am looking forward to: ‘Tea and Talk’ club, HPW Merit Assembly and a Zoom with my friends.
Have a super Friday and a wonderful weekend,
Take care of yourself and others,
Mrs Bennett
PS Picture of the day is something that makes me happy – fresh flowers.
