Head's Blog: Good Lives

Dear Parents,

On Monday, my staff carried out CPR on a delivery man, Oliver, who had suffered a heart attack, and, in between the maelstrom of heightened stress, I thought of two things.

Firstly, how lucky we are at Handcross Park to have such professional, inspirational and effective staff that can be relied upon in an emergency. I have worked in a number of Prep and Senior schools, and that is not always true. If you can ask the question as to whether your child’s teacher goes that extra mile, communicates in a timely fashion and does everything to ensure that your child gets the best education, then one can be happy. In the end, speaking as a parent, all I ever wanted for my children was that they were happy and that they received outstanding teaching and learning; I hope that you agree.

Secondly, I thought about a TED talk that I watched a few weeks ago – Robert Waldinger - What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness – and the research findings could be summed up with view that, ‘good relationships keep us happier and healthier’ and that, ‘social connections are really good for us – family, friends and community’ and it is, ‘the quality of your close relationships that matters most not the number of friends that you have’. I thought that this had a resonance with me and highlighted what we try and teach our children at Handcross Park – a lesson for life, a way to live our lives.

I am pleased to say that we received a call from Oliver’s son today and he told us that his father is recovering well – off the ventilator and he is speaking again and managing to breathe by himself now.

What wonderful news for the weekend!