A NEW SCHOOL YEAR

2011 and a new school year has commenced. I started back at school 3 weeks ago. I thought I’d visit the school on the holidays to get myself back into the swing of things. I needed something to re-spark my motivation after such a long break away from being at school. As I walked into the school grounds, I wished the school secretary, cleaner and Head Teacher a Happy New Year and proceeded to my therapy room.

What a mess it was.

There was old furniture stacked in the middle, a bench across the room, my ankle-foot orthoses strewn across another section of floor and papers that weren’t mine scattered across our desk. My cigarette lighter for my mosquito coil had grown legs and disappeared and the pen that I had tied to the desk and mummified in sticky-taped had been skilfully de-stick-taped and had gone to another home. That pen obviously did not want to be shackled to my desk and there was someone out there who had a better use for it.

However, this was not the worst of what I had walked into.

In the cupboard where I had stored all of my therapy equipment had been infested by rodents and had rat poo ALL. OVER. EVERYTHING. They’d even managed to bite through a container of drinking chocolate powder and leave bits of rat-bite-sized plastic lid everywhere. Quicker than you could say “rat poo!” I had snapped on a pair of gloves and was madly cleaning out the store room with the strongest cleaning fluid that Suva had to offer.

Linda, my counterpart, came to school the next day and we decided to attack the cupboard. For too long, the school has managed to accumulate a lot of useless, broken, musty-smelling and old equipment. There was also a pile of equipment in plastic wrap that had been sitting in a separate store room for a year. I suggested to Linda that we open it, clean off the rat poo and determine if it was in good enough condition to be used. What we found was a gold mine!

We found fantastic supportive seating and a large wheelchair pram. We also found things that were of little help like ancient looking foot braces which looked like they’d been worn by Forrest Gump and other bits of incomplete broken equipment. We also visited the school’s hostel which also had a pile of equipment in plastic wrap that wasn’t being used. We raided that and found more supportive seating, wheelchairs, suspension walkers and one really small saddle walker. It was like Christmas all over again!

Since then, the school has taken a turn for the better. The Head Teacher has been inspired to shake up the school’s curriculum. She said that if she walks, her staff will crawl. If she runs, they will walk and if she takes flight, they will run. We’ve been having extensive meetings with the aim of improving the curriculum and making Hilton Special School the best that it can possibly be.

So anyway, that is how the start of the school year has panned out: productive, innovative and leaping forwards with a view to be the leaders of special education. I hope that this is a preview of things to come!