Bea goes back to school

August 28, 2024

This week Vicky Ahmed in the Education team is helping her daughter prepare to go back to school. In this blog she reflects on the last year and shares her hopes for the year ahead.

New shoes, check. School cardigan, check. Water bottle, check. Sound familiar? Our eldest daughter Beatrice is getting ready to go back to school this week.

Bea turned 5 years old on the last day of the summer term. She lost her first tooth that same day and waved goodbye to her reception class teachers in a whirlwind of birthday joy, tooth fairy giddiness and summer holiday excitement.

I can hardly believe that here we are, a short 6 weeks later, preparing her to go back to school and start Year 1. I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on Bea’s first year at school. I remember this time last year so vividly. I was so anxious. She looked so tiny in her long pinafore dress and huge unicorn backpack. Did we choose the right school? Would she make friends? Would she be happy?

Getting ready to go back to school?

Fast forward a few months and our new normal wasn’t just the uniform and school drop offs, play dates and parent WhatsApp groups. Our new normal now also included Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy. I could never have imagined how these books and the lives of these children and their dog would be so entwined with ours! We’ve seen Bea move from sounding out and blending words to reading full sentences. It has been an absolute joy to see how much she enjoys learning to read.

As Bea moves up a year, I hope she continues to enjoy school and love books. I hope she stays curious. I really hope she is always aware that she’s part of a global family and that she can play her part in building a brighter world.

We try to inspire interest in the wider world whenever we can. We talk to Bea about how her great-grandfather was from Bangladesh and often look at a map together to see where it is. When Bea brought some seeds home from school, I told her about Dristy, a young girl also from Bangladesh who helps her mum plant palm trees to protect their crops from flooding caused by climate change.

When we saw people fishing near where we live, I told Bea about 7-year-old Aaron from Liberia and how his fishing community has worked with CAFOD’s local experts to use technology to help catch more fish safely.

This week I’ll share another story, this one on how education changes lives. Daniel lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and he couldn’t go to school when he was younger because of the cost of the fees. He struggled to find work as a young adult. But thanks to CAFOD’s local carpentry workshops, Daniel received an education, learnt new skills and can now support his family with the money he earns.  Now, he’s a skilled carpenter with his own workshop and hopes to be able to train other young people.

As Oliver Jeffers says in Bea’s first favourite book ‘Here we are’ (that her little sister is now obsessed with) ‘It looks big, Earth. But there are lots of us on here. So be kind. There is enough for everyone.’

As we help Bea prepare to go back to school, we’ll take that obligatory photo by the front door to mark those few inches of growth, slightly wilder hair and newly gappy smile. We’ll think about Daniel and the transformative power of education. And we’ll keep children around the world not able to go to school in our thoughts and prayers.