Tuesday 29 June 2021
With Teacher Assessed Grades safely dispatched, it is the perfect moment to deliver messages of thanks to the incredible teachers who have guided Prom-dress daughter through her A Levels over the past two impossibly challenging years…
I settle down at the kitchen table with a pack of ‘Thank you’ cards and, pen poised… I start, I stop, I chew the lid, I make a coffee. Just where to start? Just how to find the words?
Why, you may ask, have I not waited until Results Day? Well that bit is easy; because grades and achievements are not really the point of me writing to them today. The lessons my daughter has learned during her two years at college surpass any set of results or gold lettered certificates. They have taught her that she is far more capable and confident than she ever realised, and that is invaluable.
Prom-dress daughter struggled to speak at Nursery. My little girl just waved as her name was called out on the register, and received an award when, 7 months in she found the courage to respond with the words ‘here‘.
She was described as ‘timid‘ on her transition to High School report and, I lost count of the number of times at Parent Evenings that I left knowing only that her teachers wanted her to ‘contribute more’ or that she was ‘very quiet‘ in lessons. Now, following a traumatic occasion when I locked verbal horns with an unfortunate English Teacher, I was forbidden, by all my offspring, from saying anything at all at Parental consultations, so I may have wanted to suggest ‘Look if you want her to contribute, why don’t you just ask her a question?’ but I instead I just bit my tongue. And perhaps I am glad I did, because it was all to change when she went to college.
Our local college is huge and I was mildly terrified that my quiet girl would be lost in the crowds. But the opposite happened. Teachers took a real interest. They assessed in detail. They gave careful feedback. They knew my daughter inside out. At Parent Evenings I learned about her academic strengths, how clever she was and how ready she was for Higher Education; and not once did anyone focus on her shyness. When challenges, such as presentations, came, they didn’t just tell her to ‘be more confident‘, they showed her how to be, by preparing and practising in advance. And she flourished. Highlight of the two years for me? Was is the top mark for her History coursework or an A* in a Maths assessment? No! It was the day she came home to tell me that she had taken part in ‘role play’ in a Philosophy lesson; simply astonishing.
Quite how they managed this amidst the chaos and disruption of covid-19, I’ll never know. I think they are just gifted. I think they radiate vocation and care. I think they are fantastic!
I take a deep breath. I take the plunge. I start to write.
” What to say, when ‘Thank you’ just isn’t enough…”
I fill both pages of the card. I hope my words do them justice. I hope they like fizzy wine. I hope they know that their work changes lives. I hope they know that there is no more important role in life…
Smashing Single Parenthood 