“The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”
– Fred Astaire
There are few places that can be better than the Senior School front lawn when the sun is shining. There is shade from horse chestnuts, the venerable pine tree is used as a set of cricket stumps and the broad canopy of the plane trees frames what is an idyllic situation. Recently the weather has been good enough for the majority of our pupils to be out of doors during break and lunch. As I look from my study window, I see a picture that must have been the same for my predecessors – rugby balls being thrown around, friends sitting on benches chatting and even (I am delighted to report) an impromptu game of cricket. The same is true in the Junior School, plenty of running about on the green pitch, fun being had on the bikes and the sandpit in the EYFS play space. No sign of screens, lots of laughter and the hum of conversations between friends.
One element of school life that we do not always see as being important is the time that is spent in between lessons. It’s time when the pupils have to start to negotiate between themselves, they have to learn a bit of give and take, they need to learn how to get along with each other. It is fair to say that this doesn’t all go to plan and the idyll described above is, well, fractured. Usually, such disputes are resolved, sometimes independently and sometimes with the help of staff. Not easy, sometimes hurtful, but ultimately an opportunity to grow. Such development of character is hard won. Learning to acknowledge mistakes and to reflect on what has gone wrong is a similarly valuable lesson. Forgiveness, learning to apologise and having the capacity to move on harmoniously is perhaps a still more important virtue.
Our young people are bombarded with a wide range of negative and harmful examples of toxic behaviour. It is only by learning to coexist during the times when they have the opportunity to manage their own behaviour that they will become the young adults we need to meet the challenges of this century. If our young people do not have the opportunity to learn to disagree agreeably then we will continue to see a world in which conflict will thrive.
