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Progress may not always be apparent
27th January 2023
I have to confess to a slightly unusual hobby – building things in the garden. At the moment, I am spending my weekends constructing a large shed; as sheds go, it is robustly-built and will hopefully look well made.
I started the project with a vision of what I wanted to achieve, and a rough plan of how I might get there – at that point, it felt exciting and reasonably straight forward. And things initially went to plan – I ordered plenty of materials, roped in some help digging the foundations, and spent some enjoyable weekends laying concrete blocks and building the timber frame. There was lots of visual progress as it quickly started to take shape; some interest (hopefully positive?!) from the neighbours, and plenty of satisfaction at how much things had moved on each weekend.
But then things started to get difficult and frustrating. As the winter set in, there was less daylight so progress slowed. Trekking outside on a Saturday morning felt less appealing during the December rain than it had during the summer. I would increasingly find myself spending hours re-doing work that I had happily rushed through in the early stages, without thinking through exactly how it needed to be, or perhaps not having measured something quite as carefully as I might have done. At this stage, things feel frustrating – progress seems painfully slow (will it ever be finished?) and the whole process less enjoyable. It can be tempting to give in – though that would leave a rather bizarre half-finished ‘monument’ at the end of the garden.
Fortunately, friends visiting us often ask to see how I am getting on – and they are able to see things from a different perspective. As they have no idea of the setbacks encountered, they just comment on the progress that has been made, which of course is more visible if seen only every few weeks or months. It might sometimes feel that I’m not achieving anything, but that is largely due to my own perspective.
Working with young people can feel very much like this – when we are involved day-to-day, all we notice is the lesson that they were not interested in, the mess that they made, or the computer that was damaged. It can feel difficult, unrewarding and like we are not making any progress. But the reality is that we are. Every year, a cohort of children leaves each of our schools, with an incalculable difference having been made during the years that they are with us. The journey through all our schools, from nursery to Sixth Form is transformational – children requiring continual care develop into adults ready to give back to society. It can be hard to see this on a dreary January morning, but if we step back and look at the impact we are having on the children and community around us, we are able to see that we really are making a difference.
Patrick Overy, COO, Learning Partners
I have to confess to a slightly unusual hobby – building things in the garden. At the moment, I am spending my weekends constructing a large shed; as sheds go, it is robustly-built and will hopefully look well made.
I started the project with a vision of what I wanted to achieve, and a rough plan of how I might get there – at that point, it felt exciting and reasonably straight forward. And things initially went to plan – I ordered plenty of materials, roped in some help digging the foundations, and spent some enjoyable weekends laying concrete blocks and building the timber frame. There was lots of visual progress as it quickly started to take shape; some interest (hopefully positive?!) from the neighbours, and plenty of satisfaction at how much things had moved on each weekend.
But then things started to get difficult and frustrating. As the winter set in, there was less daylight so progress slowed. Trekking outside on a Saturday morning felt less appealing during the December rain than it had during the summer. I would increasingly find myself spending hours re-doing work that I had happily rushed through in the early stages, without thinking through exactly how it needed to be, or perhaps not having measured something quite as carefully as I might have done. At this stage, things feel frustrating – progress seems painfully slow (will it ever be finished?) and the whole process less enjoyable. It can be tempting to give in – though that would leave a rather bizarre half-finished ‘monument’ at the end of the garden.
Fortunately, friends visiting us often ask to see how I am getting on – and they are able to see things from a different perspective. As they have no idea of the setbacks encountered, they just comment on the progress that has been made, which of course is more visible if seen only every few weeks or months. It might sometimes feel that I’m not achieving anything, but that is largely due to my own perspective.
Working with young people can feel very much like this – when we are involved day-to-day, all we notice is the lesson that they were not interested in, the mess that they made, or the computer that was damaged. It can feel difficult, unrewarding and like we are not making any progress. But the reality is that we are. Every year, a cohort of children leaves each of our schools, with an incalculable difference having been made during the years that they are with us. The journey through all our schools, from nursery to Sixth Form is transformational – children requiring continual care develop into adults ready to give back to society. It can be hard to see this on a dreary January morning, but if we step back and look at the impact we are having on the children and community around us, we are able to see that we really are making a difference.
Patrick Overy, COO, Learning Partners
