Blog
The Power of Relationships
It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m at a children’s party for my six-year-old.
Whilst sitting watching my son interact with some children whom he no longer goes to school with (he changed school in May), I am struck by the innate capacity children have to develop relationships, and keep them. He smiles shyly at the children he has not seen for a few months, and everyone greets him like a long-lost friend. Within minutes, they are all chasing balloons around the village hall.
I wonder when we all stop doing this? What age are we when relationships become so complicated that we all retreat, unsure of how to make the first move?
Having started at Valley Park in September, after twelve years at my previous school and nine in the one before that, I was acutely aware that the relationships I formed in those first few weeks would be some of the most important. It was essential to me that relationships built and developed quickly, with genuine regard for what had gone before, and an awareness that a positive start was needed above all.
I have to say that I have been intensely struck by the welcome I have received. I place the value of relationships, and building these, as one of my highest priorities, because I do believe that with strong relationships, mountains can be climbed, and any obstacle overcome. Our journeys through education, whether as a teacher, a student or a parent (and I have three children of my own, so am also acutely aware of the value of parent-teacher relationships, and the need to trust the adult we pass our children to in the morning), are all intertwined with the power of the relationships that we start to develop in those first brief moments.
So how do they form? What is the glue that binds them? What is the catalyst, the activator, that ensures the relationship lasts, or falls before the first steps? Is it trust? Kindness? Genuine appreciation? Curiosity? A smile? Think back to any relationship you have ever formed – what was it that created that sense of belonging? That knowledge that the relationship would last longer than those brief first moments?
Rita Pierson said that “Every Child deserves a Champion, an adult who will never give up on them”, and that’s where I started this year. We all need that champion – it doesn’t matter how old we are, or where we have come from. It doesn’t matter if we are a six-year-old at a party, or an adult starting a new job; champions need to exist in every walk of life, because it’s the power of relationships that create the buzz we feel, the excitement to start a new adventure. I have to say, this new adventure at Valley Park, is one I’ve fallen for, and I’m immensely looking forward to all the new relationships that will come.
