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The School Community

School is a wonderful place! You may not think that all the time, but it really is. Getting a good education is the most important part of becoming a happy adult. It helps you to live your life in a way that makes you happy and fulfilled. Right from the first day you arrived at school, your teachers have been looking after you in a way that allows you to read, write, talk, work stuff out and enjoy the world around you. If you think about what you were like in nursery or P1 and compare that with what you are like now, you will see how far you have come.

As you get older and move into a bigger school when you are 11 or 12, you will learn even more. You will probably have to work hard to master all the different subjects you will study. It’s true that later on in your school life exams might play a big part but try to remember that school is always about much more than that. School is where you learn to live with other people. Of course, our families teach us loads about that too, but the school community is bigger and often more difficult than life with your family.

All schools have different traditions and different ways of teaching and learning. If you think about your own school, you will recognise how your school does things. It may have special events to celebrate a festival or a particular time of the year. It may have special assemblies where everyone comes together to learn something. It may put on sports days, plays and class trips. It may be a tiny school in the country with only two or three classes or a huge city school with hundreds of pupils.

Whatever the identity of your school is you should be proud!

Teachers are very, very important people. They may not act like other important people such as politicians and actors, but they probably work harder and make more of a difference! Good teachers are a great influence on children (and sometimes on their parents!). They realise that by providing our young people with an excellent education, they are helping society. Without good teachers we would all be in trouble!

Teachers also use their influence to teach you about the way the world is changing so that we can look after it for the next generation. One example of this is teaching about the environment. To look after our planet, we need to change the way we treat it.

You will hear all about reducing, reusing and recycling at school and be able to access lots of information about things that are damaging the environment such as some plastics, fossil fuels, some types of farming and industry and lots of different types of transport. Learning these lessons is as important as learning maths and English.

Try to enjoy your work in school and your homework. The more curious you are, the more you will learn and the more you learn the more curious you become. Learning isn’t something that is only for school and university though. It can continue throughout your life. The really fantastic thing about learning is that it keeps you interested in the world around you and gives you lots of options about where you live, what work you do and how you spend your free time.

You might have heard the saying, “schooldays are the best days of your life.” Maybe that should be changed to “learning days are the best days of your life.” That means they can go on for years and years. Love school. Love learning!