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Dear colleagues
Welcome to our next edition of ‘Called, Connected, Committed’, where we are focussing on Seeking Reconciliation. It’s a crucial part of all of our leadership journeys, as in any school, conflict and disagreement will be a daily reality and expectation. Some of this will be immediately resolvable, some of it will create longer term challenges, requiring significant patience and endurance.
I was delighted to sit down this week with Lou Peet, who is the Chaplain at Bluecoat Church of England Secondary School in Coventry to talk about the ICONS project, which comes out of the inspirational work of Coventry Cathedral, and indeed the wider city as a city of peace and reconciliation. It was a fantastic conversation with lots of really good practical ideas for school leaders to use straight away in thinking how to embed reconciliation in the school context.
For those of us that seek to avoid conflict, we may need to embrace it through seeking reconciliation, getting things out in the open and expressing ourselves honestly, perhaps for the first time. For those of us that are more comfortable in conflict, we may need to take care not to wound un-necessarily, and pause to listen before opening our mouths for the next word.
As the challenges of this current season continue, there is potential that the need for reconciliation rises – whether it be with colleagues, students, parents or other stakeholders. Perhaps today might be the day to pick up the phone, walk down the corridor to begin that process. It usually starts with me.
In the midst of it all, may we know something of the peace of God – which in religious language, we sometimes say ‘transcends all understanding’ – in more simple terms – peace which just doesn’t make sense otherwise – and where there are opportunities to bring that peace in our classrooms and corridors today, may we have the courage to take the first step.
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