Shoreham College

by Richard Taylor-West Headmaster, Shoreham College Being challenged as individuals, in terms of learning, is immensely important for children. Gone are the days of Victorian desks, row on row, with pupils passively learning everything by rote to be regurgitated later. We no longer, in spite of Mr Gove’s recent reforms, shout “Fact, fact, fact!” at the pupils and expect a response, as Mr Gradgrind does in Dickens’ novel Hard Times.

by Richard Taylor-West Headmaster, Shoreham College It was Neil Sedaka who famously sang ‘ breaking up is hard to do’, wasn’t it? He had a point of course; it is. It’s never easy to say goodbye to someone we have shared time with and invested in, emotionally. It’s hard to say goodbye, move on and process that change. Sometimes it leads to deep grief. It is equally true, I think, that ‘making up’ can be very hard to do, as well. Making up involves all kinds of qualities and skills.

He was commenting on an assembly that had just delivered a package to about 90 pupils of what we in schools call PSHE and its broader cousin SMSC. In other words, Personal Social and Health Education and Spiritual Moral Social and Cultural education. As a parent, you probably know a bit about PSHE, or have at least heard about it. Your children may have even come home and told you about it.