Welcome Page:- Page 2

As always at this point I do need to make sure I give time to offer my gratitude for the exceptional efforts that have been made this year. The staff have continued to give so much managing the complexity of the continued pandemic while at the same time doing everything they can to make school enjoyable and rewarding for the children. I would also like to thank once again our Parents and Carers for their ongoing support and willingness to work in partnership as things have continued to evolve this year. As always, pride of place does need to go to our students. They are a truly amazing group of young people who show such adaptability, commitment and kindness.

The very last word does need to go to our former Headteacher, Martin Roberts who sadly passed away in November. Martin was an amazing man and a visionary educator. He gave so much to this school and to our community. He will be greatly missed by all those who knew him and we will be thinking of Martin’s family during this time.

Best wishes

Chris Price Headteacher

Beyond Cherwell students designed cards to thank speakers who have delivered lectures during term 1 & 2

Art by Alice Hands (Year 12) December 2021

Friends of Cherwell

if you're thinking of making a donation this year, why not think about Cherwell? Join us this year in the

school’s bold mission to support personal growth

for every student. Your gifts will support Cherwell’s young people to grow not just academically but as confident citizens, able to make the most of the opportunities around them. We have some fantastic projects to support this year across the whole school.

By Matt Barnard - Lead School Counsellor

Hurricane Maria was considered the worst natural disaster to impact Puerto Rico in 2017, causing widespread flooding and devastation. Much of the lush habitation on the island was destroyed except for the Tabonuco tree, that withstood the strong winds and rain. Not only had the tree evolved to dig deep roots too anchor itself, but the roots also intertwined with other neighbouring Tabonuco trees to create a network of roots to support one another and share nutrients.

The surviving four hundred year old Tabonuco trees represents a powerful reminder of the importance of how we can support one another as we weather the pandemic storm. The covid crisis has illuminated different aspects of human nature, as we navigate our way through this threat. Most of us have experienced feelings of anger (fight), anxiety/fear/panic (flight) and hopelessness (freeze/collapse), all of which are an evolutionary response to threat. Very useful millions of years ago, when a hostile tribe or a predator was going to attack our group. Not so helpful today where such a heightened physical response is not only unnecessary but unhelpful. But our body still responds in the same way.

What we are facing today in the pandemic is an ongoing, sustained threat. One way our huntergatherers ancestors responded to danger, was to form a greater unity to our tribe. It makes a lot of sense, to pull on the available resources and support one another. A bit like the Tabonuco trees. The downside is that we are at risk of not holding diverse perspectives, becoming less autonomous and be dominated by groupthink (blindly following our identified group). We can feel threatened by anything that represents ‘otherness’ leading to further polarisation (Us vs. them), scapegoating (find someone to blame), and in some cases become paranoid (chronic experience of threat we can’t get rid of).

In my work as a school counsellor, I’ve noticed that there has been some feeling of hopelessness and a fatigue from sustaining ourselves for such an extended time during the pandemic. We’ve built up a sense of hope that life will return to how it was before the pandemic, and the recent news has made holding on to that ideal, increasingly harder. So instead of engaging in feelings of fight or flight, we might feel powerless and become depressed, anxious and maybe find unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol, or unhelpful eating habits to manage these unbearable feelings. The problems may not manifest as being about the pandemic itself, but it’s certainly an underlying contributing factor.

Undoubtedly the threat response, which is what I have been talking about so far, is biological hardwired into the human experience. Today, we are sophisticated enough to not allow our innate reactions to dominate us, as we are capable of being calm, peaceful, empathic and compassionate towards others. I hope that this way of thinking about the threat, has given you some further insight into what you might be witnessing in yourself and those around you.

Continued…/