Caitriona’s parents were livid. As far as they were concerned, the school had been negligent in all respects. There was not a single redeeming feature in their eyes. They even wondered if the staff had something on the principal, as the complete lack of support for them as parents was staggering. They had no intention of letting this go. How could Caitriona have missed so much class time without them being told? At least it had only been a few days.
All Caitriona knew was that she was spending more and more time in the toilets crying. Leaving school seemed like the only option – what was the point in going in and not being in class? She could not see a way to make anyone understand. The pressures to start well and be positive were everywhere. Other students seemed to get it and nobody wanted to hear how hard she was finding it to buy into that. The cutting was helping despite the fact that she 100 per cent knew it was wrong and the more she did it, the harder it was going to be to stop. She had read about it and knew that this was called self-harm. Did other people not realise that self-harm is sometimes the only form of self-help available? She hated doing it, but she could also find a sense of peace in it. That made no sense if what she was doing was so wrong. She wished she knew who could help her understand this better. Everyone being busy was not the problem – she couldn’t think of anyone who could help.
Luckily, she remembered a guest speaker they had had the previous school year, so she picked up the phone. She had no visual of the person she spoke to and no sense of who they are in the world. She learned nothing of their family or professional status and yet that person managed to have everything she needed. Caitriona spoke a little and cried lots. She heard comfort and reassurance and never felt rushed while she tried to articulate what she was feeling and experiencing. The time that the volunteer was able to share generously was the surprisingly obvious thing that nobody around her seemed to have had in recent days. Caitriona wondered if she had asked anyone in her world to give her time. She doubted it. Somehow it had been hard to ask those she knew and easy to pick up the phone without having a clue who would answer. She wondered why she had not asked her friends. She had not seen as much of them recently and could not quite remember how that had happened.
Caitriona’s friends did not like the way she had swapped the skirts and shorts for tracksuits. Whatever about leggings they would not hang around with someone wearing stuff that just looked so dull and boring. The problem was that Caitriona’s clothes were a perfect match for her these days. She was no longer fun to be with and did not seem to be willing to make any effort at all. They were not going to put up with that – she could find new friends who matched her new boring personality.
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There are Caitrionas in every school – a young person quietly struggling and suffering, with a friendship group that has not reached the level of maturity that equips them to understand and support. The return to school is a time when those who are not coping are potentially less likely to be detected. And this is nobody’s fault; it is a systemic problem.
Everyone returning to school suffers from overwhelm, students and staff alike. The maintenance and auxiliary staff are under pressure for everything to look perfect. School senior management are perfectly entitled to want the very best for the return, but if there was ever a thankless task it is having something perfect for hundreds of adolescents. The wear and tear on a place of such heavy-duty users is visible within days if not hours, but the place has to look right on day one nonetheless. Taking pride in one’s work is so important but it is such a bonus when others consciously help uphold that pride.
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Principal panic is very real and never more so than when hundreds of reluctant individuals need to be settled back into school rhythms. It is quite possible that literally nobody wants to be there and yet it falls to one person to lead that. But a sense of enthusiasm has to start somewhere, so principals all over the country become masters of disguise and park the panic to try to instil some (fake?) enthusiasm in others.
Schools are the most extraordinarily complex places when it comes to an exchange of energy. There is the romantic notion of schooldays being the best days of our lives, but accompanying it is an acknowledgment that we only realise this later. A future sense of nostalgia doesn’t do a huge amount for school culture in the present day. By being so clear that we only see how great schooldays are long after the event we have the nudge we need to look more closely at how they are being experienced in the now.
With everyone in Caitriona’s world so obviously training their gaze elsewhere she risked slipping completely slipping out of sight. It is up to all of us who work in a school to try to develop the superpower of knowing what is really happening for others. It’s a core feature of community building.
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