At university I was told that “all news is good news”. Given everything that has happened in the Royal Family over the last few weeks, I would have to question that.
So instead of listening to the advice of the well-paid university lecturers, the best piece of communications advice I was ever given was from my Grandma. One day she simply said: “It is not the cards you get, it is how you play them.”
That’s more like it!
Two things have happened at schools that we work with this week that have really hammered this home.
1) A stray firework lands at an Infant school in Rugby causing the sheds containing all the play equipment to catch fire.
2) On the fire theme, 18 months ago a school we work with in Wigan lost 50% of its buildings when a solar panel caught fire. On Wednesday we, quite literally, helped launch their new vision into space – just weeks after staff had been to a glamorous awards ceremony in London where they were shortlisted for Primary School of the Year at the Pearson Teaching Awards.
In the case of the infant school in Rugby, the response could have been to simply call the Police and fill in the insurance form. Instead we embraced the story. The school’s call for support made the front page of the local paper. The BBC and other radio stations came to interview the Headteacher. Donations have been made and the community is now in the process of putting on a charity concert to replace the toys lost.
In the process, the school was able to show it was a valuable part of the community and talk about its successes over the last 12 months – which isn’t unhelpful as an Open Morning is on the horizon.
The school in Wigan is extraordinary.
Following the fire in 2018, the community rallied providing everything from books to portacabins. The staff worked tirelessly to support their pupils – and the results that Summer were nothing short of breath taking. In every measure, KS2 results had moved from averageto well above average.
It would be easy, at that point, to see this as job done. But that was just part of the journey.
The response to the devastation of the fire has made the school appreciate that anything is possible. With our support, the efforts of the one form entry school on the edge of Wigan have been recognised with national awards. They even put their new school mascot into space to help their children realise that everything is possible.
If my Grandma was still alive, she would have said that the school had been given a dud hand – but ended up playing a blinder.
So, if things haven’t gone to plan, look at how you can build on the problems so they become the start of a positive story – not the full stop on the end of a sentence that you allow to define you.