Amy Ward

Teachers are a passionate and resourceful bunch. If there’s a challenge, we can be guaranteed to find a solution. But this year has been different. If you’re anything like me, the usual weariness that sets in as the winter approaches has only been amplified by the arrival of Covid-19, and its often devastating effects on school communities and the lives of the families it serves. Masks, social distancing, spraying desks, live-streaming lessons, tearful pupils uncertain of their future, cold open-windowed classrooms: if this is the ‘new normal’, I hope to never get used to it.

By Sarah-Jane Bentley, ACT director.

Our souls seek rest. Anxiety is restlessness and restlessness is a lack of faith. The only place to find true rest is in the Truth. And the Truth is not an abstract concept: He is the Word incarnate, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). If our teaching does not challenge our students’ suppression of the truth in unrighteousness, we are contributing to their state of anxiety.

By Alun Ebenezer, Headmaster of Fulham Boys School

We are living through strange days: COVID-19; lockdowns; the rule of six; two metres for fifteen minutes, one metre for one minute; hands, face, space; no Christmas to really look forward to.

And of course, the constant worry about loo roll!

By Becky Hunsberger

How can we help our students to learn? According to educational research, two of the strongest factors in student learning relate back to the teacher-student relationship. This shouldn’t surprise us, since we know that we are created as relational beings in the image of a relational God.

By Russ Kraines

Welcome to the world of distance–or social distanced–learning. You may not appreciate such welcome but in part or in whole your teaching and learning environment may need to embrace this reality. This season of disrupted learning has raised many questions such as what platform(s), materials, assessments, etc., are appropriate and effective? But a more fundamental question lies here, underneath and throughout the move to adjusting our practices.

By Becky Hunsburger

What a year this has been! My guess is that when you started school you didn’t foresee weeks of school closures, a global pandemic, the evacuation of friends and students, disrupted patterns of teaching and learning, riots in the streets, or distributing food to the needy in your community. And yet, while we might have been blindsided by the events of the first half of 2020, we know that our Lord was not. He is the one who called us and appointed us to care for our students and communities in “such a time as this.”