As they say, new year: new beginnings.
Amidst the new worlds and altered routines that many students step into at the start of a school year — whether it’s the first day of primary, the move from primary to secondary, or from secondary to college — we often forget how turbulent these changes can feel. Alongside the excitement of new friends and fresh opportunities come new pressures: the weight of expectation, peer and parental pressure to succeed, and the looming focus on exams. For some, this brings the thrill of success, for others, the fear of failure.
This is a massive new world – and not for underestimating.
All of us feel pressure – some, I agree, some more keenly than others: but pressure all the same. Children are absolutely no different. Possibly more so. The impressionable age is further invaded by various social media platforms. This is the age of fast-moving technology and social media outlets which bring about their own vicarious pressures.
So why are we, at Fishing for Schools…urging calm?
Well, obviously you need a degree of patience and natural calm when fishing, otherwise we would never catch anything. But it’s a good deal more than that.
Water and the whole immersion into a natural world of fish, plants, water and countryside is its own therapy – elements that help us “mend” and drift near timelessly to other places. In many ways angling is the perfect antidote and counterpoint to the madness, speed and invasiveness of this current world – irrespective of age or demographic.
Curiously, or maybe not, a friend who has recently stayed with us - and coincidentally does a vast amount of media and social for both the BBC and Corrie - picked up our impact report. She not only loved the concept of this way of communicating (print is not dead, it seems!) but, immediately picked up on one of the quotes from our Student Voices: “Fishing has made me happy and for once I was patient…”
But then I could say, probably the same for me, certainly….and perhaps the few million other fishers who are out there.
So, there you have it…
Angling: the antidote to today’s pressure and frantic pace.