Festive Cheer

13th December 2024

Nearly there!

We enter that period where most of our activity, over the next week, will have a festive feel. Many of those events will be a celebration of the work undertaken by children and young people over this term. And it’s been a long term and so there’s lots of things to recognise and many celebrations to be had. With the festive period that really is now just over the horizon and the week ahead it all should be enjoyable, fun and will pass at a pace.

And we mustn’t forget that it’s Christmas lunch time as well. I know that Winterhill have had their Christmas lunch just this last week (I’m sorry I missed that) and Sitwell and Oakwood have their festival food on Wednesday, whilst Jeff will be serving his festive offer throughout the coming week. I know in the past, locally and nationally, there has been some gnashing of teeth and furrowed brows when considering whether it is appropriate or not, in our very mixed communities, to serve Christmas/festive food. It seems to me that we tie ourselves up in knots too much about this. If you talk to the children and young people they very much enjoy the experience of having some Christmas food; whatever their personal, family, religious or cultural perspectives might be. For many of our children, it will be, for a whole host of reasons, the only decent Christmas themed meal that they will get this year. That isn’t just about those families who don’t recognise or celebrate Christmas day (for personal, religious or cultural reasons), there will be some of our children and young people whose families would like to serve a Christmas lunch but who will be unable to do so – and we all know why that might be; be that finances, organisational or personal challenges. For the whole host of reasons therefore, it’s important that we offer our children the opportunity to taste some traditional Christmas fayre, sit and eat with a knife and fork with their friends, and sometimes with the staff and, for just a moment, reflect upon the value that eating together can bring.

It is a strange period, in a sense that will balance all those events and that positivity with the need to ensure that we do not waste valuable learning time as we rattle towards the end of term. And so, you can be reassured and it’s absolutely critical that we ensure that we maintain standards, have high expectations and continue to expect our pupils and students to work hard this coming week. There is a finite amount of time and success, academically and more widely, is almost always as a result of hard work. And that hard work must be each and every day, each and every lesson. The teachers will be wrestling with that challenge and we’ll have some really well-formed strategies for ensuring that the business of the school and college continues whilst allowing for recognition, celebration and some festive cheer.

I wish you well with the final Christmas shopping this weekend. As I’ve said before, avoid going to the shops if you can do your shopping online; I promise you it’s a lot easier. This weekend some of you will be wrapping those presents, some of you will be planning your family celebrations, some of you won’t be that bothered about Christmas, but you will be looking forward upto 2 weeks away from school/college/work. Whatever you’re doing this weekend, whether it’s Christmas related or not, I wish you well and look forward to sharing some of that festive cheer with you in the coming few days.

‘Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.’ Edna Ferber
Nearly there!