Secondary Weekly Highlights: Mindful versus Mind Full 🧐🧠📝

At a time when young people are being over-stimulated by screens, the process of examinations and just being a teenager, they are in danger of being overloaded satiated and stressed out! Mindfulness can be a tool that helps young people - all people - find calm in the present, regulate their emotions, self regulate their thoughts and actions and develop compassion for..

‘Praise the rain…’

In today's 'Thought for the day', Dan, our Primary Counsellor, reflects on Joy Harjo's poem ‘Praise the Rain’ which invites the reader into a contemplative response to the vicissitudes of human life; To gently witness the visitations of the thoughts, images, synchronicities and tragedies of life in a spirit of profound and simple praise.

Praise the rain… The curl of plant, the..

Ten contemplative tips and more resources!

Dan, our Primary Counsellor, shares ten contemplative tips and some more useful resources to help everyone through the MCO.

"Welcome back to term 3 everyone. I’m heartened that the Alice Smith community is coming together at a time when we all naturally feel a little fragmented, and that parent / child feedback has shaped new online offerings this term. I’m also glad there’s..

A teacher can never tell where his influence stops

In today's "Thought for the Day" Dan reflects on teachers and teaching.

We all know what it’s like to fall. After all, we’ve been doing it since we were small children. And life has a habit of re-minding us that experiences of falling down, falling ill, or falling into bad habits continue throughout our lives. This is a natural consequence of what it is to be human and to have..

“The highest wisdom is kindness”

In today's "Thought for the Day" Dan, our Primary Counsellor, considers kindness and it is needed more with the unusual, and unforeseen, situation we find ourselves in.

The highest wisdom is kindness - Berakhot, 17A (from the Babylonian Talmud)

A significant part of enlightenment is the awakening to the simple and profound truth of kindness; there is an implicit bond..

“The friend is the key and I am the lock”

We hope you have been enjoying Dan's "Thought for the Day" over the past week giving you a moment for reflection amidst our current situation. Today Dan considers friendship.

The friend is the key and I am the lock - Rumi

Much of the most ancient discovered literature attests to the vital importance of friendship to human life, given it’s archetypal pull upon our lives. It is..

"In wilderness is the preservation of the world"

While many of us remain indoors due to the Movement Control Order Dan Lawrence, our Primary School Counsellor, offers a moment to reflect on our connection with nature even if it's just through our windows today!

In wilderness is the preservation of the world - Henry D Thoreau

Henry Thoreau, the poet-philosopher and environmental scientist author of “Walden”, knew a..

“One film can change a life forever.”

This weekend our Primary Counsellor, Dan, reflects on the impact film can have on us and suggests the enforced retreat to our homes is a great opportunity to share our favourite films with our families.

One film can change a life forever.

- Franco Zefferelli

In a documentary about his beautiful and moving 1976 film ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon’, (about the lives of St. Francis..

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste"

As many of us have been learning and working at home this week, Dan, our Primary School Counsellor, reflects on how we can use silence to our benefit.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence

- The Desiderata

Whilst its author remains unknown, the anonymous wisdom of the Desiderata, believed by some to have been found on a..

“It is always the secure who are humble”

In today's 'Thought for the Day", Dan Lawrence, our Primary School Counsellor, reflects on humility and the quality of being humble.

It is always the secure who are humble - G. K. Chesterton

The security of which the British “prince of paradox” speaks is spiritual and could just as easily be put another way: It is the humble who are secure, precisely because they are humble,..

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

In today's 'Thought for the Day", Dan Lawrence, our Primary School Counsellor, looks at how we can approach our fear in these uncertain times.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

This much-repeated quote has perhaps lost something of its context as time passes and since first uttered by President Roosevelt during World War II. And yet I..