Scarisbrick Hall School Winter Newsletter 2014 | Page 14

Middle School & College

Education News
The next session of this Newsletter will be an insight into our Middle School & College classrooms,
telling you what each class have focussed on over the past few weeks.
Also in this section is an overview of our faculties.

A Message from Mr Shaw
As we approach Christmas at Scarisbrick Hall School we have been reminded of the
impact that the small things we do can make. In assembly time we have looked at
Mother Teresa and how her humble way served some of the most helpless and
rejected members of our global society.
At Christmas time we read the story of a baby born in a manager, because there
was no room to be found in a more appropriate dwelling. It's not that Joseph and
Mary were late to town, but it's that they were rejected by their family. Clearly they
had family members in town, as that was the reason they returned to Bethlehem
for the census. That there was no room in the guest chamber for a pregnant
woman indicates that they chose not to make room for this unwedded mother.
The birth of Jesus in a room where animals lived suggests shame and rejection.
It is staggering to think that from this family that was cast out by their
relatives, left homeless albeit for a barn, a son would be born that would
have a prolific and transformational impact on our way of life.
The owner of the barn would have had no idea that his compassion to a
rejected homeless family would be replayed in the traditional nativity play
over two thousand years later (with the aid of a tea towel and skilfully
tailored sheets). It just took a moment for him to have compassion on this
homeless couple, even though their own family did not.
Our own lives are but a flicker in the vast expanse of time yet every day, every second presents an
opportunity to light a spark that will echo in time. In the words of the Ridley Scott film Gladiator “ what
we do in life echoes in eternity”.
From the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa to the civil rights movement in the United States; historic
events begin through the acts of ordinary people doing simple yet extraordinary things. I agree that
sometimes spectacular acts are called for, as in the story of Moses or the Berlin Wall, but other times,
great historic events begin with simple actions, such as a tired Rosa Parks deciding to stay “and refusing
to move” on a bus.
Our passion is that we make a difference in the lives of the young people in our school and that they in
turn are inspired to be t H