Malton, North Yorkshire 
 
Mothering Sunday- Miss Angela here. On this special day for many I’ve been pondering about our job as teachers. 
Yesterday on our busiest day of the week nearly every teacher in KH had some kind of chat, pep talk or caring discussion. 
 
Miss Kyla chatted to one class about being kind to each other after a Daddy had informed her of a child picking on his daughters. 
 
Miss Rebecca dealt with a new disruptive child who is hell bent on breaking up friendships! 
 
Miss Audrie organised buddies to help new pupils feel welcome. 
Miss Joanne found herself encouraging lesser confident children who were slightly overwhelmed by exceptionally talented confident kids. 
I myself enticed a child out of the toilet who was in a very emotional state due to the nearing anniversary of Dad passing away. 
 
We would never expect to take the place of a Mother/ Stepmother, family relation or indeed a very good family friend.  
 
Having said that, we sometimes have to intervene when there’s the inevitable fall out by personality clashes and differences of opinions while children and young people are attending KH. 
Other times Mother’s ask teachers to help solve fall outs and upsets even though they are not KH based but stem from split families, school and other reasons. Our teachers are always on hand to try their best if it helps make a happy outcome. 
 
I’m sure a lot of our senior school parents are aware that KH pupils are often regarded as snobby, different, odd, goody-goody and many more names our dedicated disciplined and determined young people find they’re called. This is where we encourage the kids to talk and support each other as well and many of our classes start with a group hug the class have instigated themselves before or after warm up. 
I am by no means saying all KH pupils are perfect, far from it. They are typically naughty, grumpy, moody,or hormonal young people that manage to test the patience in most households at sometime or other. 
 
Yet at KH we are known to have a long history of pastoral care simply by being available to speak to any young person who needs to get something off their chests. Quite often this is because they don’t want to upset their parents or they find it embarrassing talking to family members. 
We are not trained psychologists or have any qualifications in mental health but by having an open office where our seniors encourage the younger pupils to come to open up what is troubling them, we know we are helping that tiny little bit.  
 
With over 40 years of teaching under my belt I have come across so many situations that I personally have been asked to try to help solve. 
 
Whatever the reasons I can’t be more proud of our reputation in not only training our pupils to a professional standard but also nurturing and caring for each individual child and young person as ‘loco parentis’ as over the years we have had hundreds of parents extremely grateful. 
 
I hope you’ve all had a wonderful time on this Mother’s Day. 
Tagged as: Mothering Sunday
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