A beautiful view...

Sitting in my office this evening, I realised how lucky I am to work in such a beautiful place. Sometimes we take the world around us for granted, but this evening the view that I look onto daily made me stop and appreciate the natural beauty. I’m not sure whether it was the brilliant blue sky, the immense beauty of Whinfell Beacon, the lambs frolicking or that sun shining beautifully onto our lovely outdoor classroom or maybe all of the above, but it really did take my breath away.

In all fairness - the sunshine really does add to the view but it is equally as stunning covered with snow, and even in the rain (although on a rainy day the beacon often disappears behind the clouds and mist). The funny thing is at 6pm I wished the children were still there. We had all taken learning outside, taken advantage of the fact that today nobody felt cold. In fact it was one of those perfect sunny days that are warm but not too hot - the sort of day that even the teachers who don’t like going outside can take learning outside and I’m sure we weren’t the only school to take advantage of the luscious weather, however, I’m not sure I actually told the children to just stop and look.

In fact, when it came to the daily collective worship, I took the children inside, put the music on and did a lovely collective worship about forgiveness. This evening when I stopped and looked at that view, I wanted to kick myself. Why didn’t I take the opportunity to just stop the children and look? To be quiet, to look at the beauty before them, to feel the warm sun on their heads, to watch the lambs do that funny little jump (the one where they sort of wiggle in the air).

You see, I did everything right - I took the learning outside, I took advantage of our wonderful environment, but I forgot to just stop, to look and to say ‘wow’ and by the time I did - it was too late to share this moment with the children.

In the western world we are always so busy, rushing from a to b, working. We talk about the problems of social media, people with their heads in a screen, living their lives on line, but as teachers we need to model the simple things; appreciating what is around us, stopping and catching our breath and giving ourselves time to notice what is around us. Would my year six SATS results be effected if I stopped them for 20 mins to look at the view? No they wouldn’t, but I do believe that maybe teaching them to stop and look around them might improve their relationship with the world and themselves.

Next time there’s a rainbow, or a dusting of snow or just a beautiful blue sky - I’m not going to just keep going, I’ll still take the learning outside, but I will also make sure we stop and say ‘WOW’, together and appreciate what a beautiful world we live in, because not everyone has a view like this from their office window.