Last week at the Parent Forum, we discussed being forgetful and why the school does not take in forgotten items. It seems that not all parents fully understand the two very important reasons behind this, so we wanted to share our ethos here for everyone.

First of all - we all do it! We know that! Nobody is perfect and we all forget things every now and again – it is part of life!

Teaching Responsibility and Accountability

We all want our children to grow up to be successful, responsible citizens. The skills which underpin this, start small while our children are young. At the moment they are developing the skills they need by remembering the small stuff, so that later in life it is much easier to remember to do the big and important things. At primary age, they can look after their own things, like their PE Kit or reading book. Depending on the age and development of your child, they may need a few reminders from a grown up. Sometimes it might also be useful to have checklist when leaving the house, or a timetable to help with remembering which items are needed on which day. We all have different strategies which we use to help our memory and children can start to understand what helps them.

If they do forget something it is not the end of the world! There is no judgement. We can help with solutions to adapt and problem solve, but we quite often find that children do this themselves. We heard a great story of a Year 6 pupil who had left their daily maths book at school so used a bit of modern technology to get the questions from a friend – super independence and problem solving! Learning to be flexible and adapt is a really important skill in life – living amidst a global pandemic has certainly taught us that.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Now more than ever it is so important to focus on our mental health. At Andoversford, we teach children to recognise and manage their emotions – all of their emotions. We help them to understand that they will feel embarrassed or frustrated or annoyed with themselves sometimes. It is okay to feel like that – all emotions are valid. School is a safe and nurturing environment which allows them to explore these feelings and find a way of managing them, with some support if they need it. In the very short term, they might feel better if a forgotten item is given to them but they won’t go through the process of accepting and working through their feelings and coming to a solution. This process develops resilience, which we all need by the bucket load to cope with the pressures of modern life.

We have a lot of empathy for our pupils, we have been in their shoes ourselves after all. But part of learning is getting things wrong – this is equally valid in academic subjects as well as learning soft skills for life.