Working with others and for others

This year has been both amazing and demanding. When I established LACE and made our #iwill pledge I was developing an already existing community involvement programme and liaising with a thriving active schools sport leadership . It meant that I could focus on what was not being done and try to move the focus away from individual entitlement and towards community engagement. At the end of the school year we had succeded in creating a senior team who could be relied upon to lead and nurture younger volunteers and a general ethos where volunteering was seen as a natural part of what young people do to "put something back".

So September was the month where we pushed ourselves forward to demonstrate the transformative nature of engaging with the local community. We did this by enabling different groups of pupils to present at the Scottish Learning festival and represent 3 different third sector organisations to illustrate how wider achievement can be at the core of a pupil's learning journey rather than an add on, that is often not considered until the personal statement needs to be written. The pupils brimmed with newly found confidence, now aware that what they were doing meant something beyond the shared purpose and enjoyment they experienced when volunteering.

So by October everything was ticking along nicely. The School and House captains had been chosen, the first House event had been organised for the last day before the October break. The S1 and some S2 pupils were all anticipating the residential booked for the first week back and the senior volunteers had all their community placements fitted into their timetables. Most exciting of all to me was that the much anticipated Diana Award anti bullying Pro training was at last on the hoizon for a group of self elected S4 health and wellbeing mentors, who all wanted to create a more positive learning environment for all our pupils.

Lunchtime on the last day was a surreal experience. Busy as I always seem to be, I had temporarily forgotten the lyp sync battle was taking place in the hall and I was in the furthest reaches of the school. As I made my way against the tide of pupils at the end of lunchtime I became aware that there was a stark contrast of emotions between the happy chattering throng of lypsync contestants and audience who passed me at the start of my journey back to base, to the distraught and anguished expressions of older pupils that were gathering together nearer my office. I soon found out that this was the response of a social media posting which heralded the beginning of a period of mourning for our school community. The shock of an unanticipated death is always hard for a school body as each individual comes to school with their own individually wrapped baggage. Occuring as it did on the last afternoon of teaching was both a blessing and a curse, as the close of the school day forced the grief out into the untimetabled, unstructured part of everyone's lives and meant that when we returned after a week's hiatus everything had moved on and yet has also stood still.

The S1/2 residential continued without much disruption, although the staff absences from what was happening back at school resulted in a topsy turvey learning experience for all concerned, with an emphasis on relationships rather than subject expertise being the underlying theme of the week. Through the activities the younger pupils took part in as part of their residential challenge being posted regularly on twitter, it was possible to see them both growing in self confidence and mutual trust. Relationships were developed and skills were mastered. They completed their learning logs daily to identify how they overtook their previously identified personal targets and the reflection on these in future weeks should mean our pilot of Dynamic Youth awards should prove to kick start these pupils in our #iwill pledge.

The Health and Wellbeing mentors were somewhat knocked by the recent events but met the day before the anti bullying training event to come to an agreed consensus on how the group should progress. Those in the team who felt the need to attend their classmate's funeral instead of going to the training were encouraged to still see themselves as part of the group and the rest saw this as a real opportunity to become upstanders and be acknowledged as pupils willing to support any fellow pupil who had need of them. The training itself was inspiring and the diminished group put their all, into the activities and began to bond, separated from the school itself for the day. The plans they made on the day were taken in by their newly elected leader and they agreed to meet as a whole the following week to begin to implement their proposals.

The following week we were further shaken by another pupil bereavement. Although different in nature because the friends and classmates had grown up in the shadow of her underlying health conditions, coming on the back of the previous period of shock and sadness it seemed too cruel a twist of fate.For many adolescents this has been the first encounter with their own possible mortality and the safe secure haven of their lives has been severely tested. For others it has stirred memories that they have tried hard to put away and the support sytems put in place have had to comfort a wide range of unregulated emotions.

However the determination of the small band of health and wellbeing mentors was palpable as they discussed the issues that they felt were most pressing and divided up a course of action. Everyone identified personal areas of strength and potential contributions they can make to strengthen the underlying ethos of the school and be true to the spirit of this year's anti bullying week, without explicitly referring to the title "anti bullying week" at all. Respect is one of our school values and finding ways to demonstrate the #chooserespect hashtag whilst also highlighting the way individuals can work with others and for others, to improve our overall mental health and wellbeing is their aim this #iwill week. I am immensely proud of them all and cannot wait to see how they grow this role over the next couple of years.