(The full version of St. Mary's Messenger can be found in the password-protected area of the website)

Dear Parents, Children and Friends,

There I was, thinking about ways I could spin out an unusually thin week’s events into something close to a front-page’s worth of news and then all of a sudden there’s an earthquake to talk about! (Now I have a chance to drag out some cobwebby old Chilean anecdotes and get you turning out of sheer boredom to the articles on the menu.) When something like this happens, it is a wonderful, once-in-blue-moon sort of opportunity for teachers to change their plans and explore all the different aspects of earthquakes. Most of the children will never have experienced anything like this in their lives so they will be receptive and wanting to share thoughts. They can learn so much from a rare event like this.

I can say that earthquakes that big were rare, even in Santiago. We were always told that Santiago was well overdue for a destructive earthquake and we had an Earthquake Policy and used to practise earthquake drill as well as fire drill. Neither went half as well as our fire drills here at St. Mary’s, and the teachers who had been at the school for the last bad ‘quake said that no matter how many times you practise the drill, once the buildings start shaking, windows start breaking and the ground starts rippling under your feet at least half the teachers are going to panic, let alone the children, so you just try to get safe, say your prayers and wait. With that in mind, it does seem good to be back in boring old, safe old England.

This week I have had a couple of very welcome comments from people about the good manners and behaviour shown by our pupils. One was from a local lady, remarking on how polite yet friendly our boys had been when coming back from the Lindum and the other was from my former deputy head from The Grange who was amazed at how quietly and attentively our school sat during the Informal Concert just before half-term. She ended her kind comment with “…even the nursery children were wonderful.” I just smiled and replied, “Yes, they are, aren’t they?!” Little things like that brighten the day; they also remind me that sometimes we stand so close to something that it becomes a case of we can’t see the wood for the trees.

As Mr Hardcastle can tell you, I am no scientist but I do understand one of the laws of physics: the one that says matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed into a different state of existence. This being the case, it means that it is highly likely that, somewhere in the universe, all those lost bits of St. Mary’s clothing are still in existence, patiently waiting to be re-united with their former owners. I have been teaching for quite a couple of years now but I still do not know how children manage to lose so many articles of clothing or where it goes when it is lost. (Mrs Ogley says it is George, who lives in the roof above her room, but even he can’t nab all the stuff that seems to vanish within the school.) I would be very grateful if all parents could please, check that there are no alien clothes in their child’s bag/wardrobe and that there is a nametape on every piece of clothing. If anything is found, thank you, you have helped solve someone’s worry. Moving slightly sideways from that, we have some found property that has been sitting for quite a while yet is unclaimed. Someone must surely recognise these watches:

Blue Flik-Flak watch (two blue/red fish on face)
Pink girl’s watch (Claire’s Acessories?) with ginger kitten on face
Pink Hello Kitty watch
Pink Jacques Farel girl’s watch (flowers/rabbit on strap)
Boy’s Cactus watch with blue/light blue strap

Please reclaim the watches from Mrs Robinson.

Have a good weekend

Andy Salmond Smith