IT HAS BEEN A YEAR FOR OLD ENDINGS AND NEW BEGINNINGS. We have seen the end of coursework for A-levels and the arrival of new specifications across the board. Is change always a good thing? Not always. Is it in this case? I think so.

It is also a new beginning for the magazine and for myself. I have taken over as Editor from the wonderful Evie Bentley and hope that this, my first edition, won’t disappoint. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped me in my new position as Editor; those of you know who you are. Thank you, your unbending belief has been an inspiration.

I would also like to take this occasion to wish you all well and the very best of good luck with your new beginnings as we once again brave the storm and battle our way forward into that great and often unpredictable world of education. For those of you just starting, bear with it. For those of you who are dab hands, keep up the hard work. I leave you with this poem by Sheenagh Pugh which a dear friend read to me recently, I hope you may appreciate it as much as I do.

Sometimes things don’t go, after all from bad to worse
Some years, muscadel faces down frost: green thrives:
the crops don’t fail
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well
A people sometimes will step back from war
Elect an honest man: decide they care enough,
that they can’t leave some stranger poor
Some men become what they were born for
Sometimes our best efforts do not go amiss;
sometimes we do as we meant to
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
That seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you…

Laura Rudd
laura.rudd@franklin.ac.uk