A Stolen Childhood by Casey Watson Page A

unsurprising, since I’ve yet to meet a child in a classroom who wasn’t happy to be creating some sort of art. I’d have liked us to be contributing something else to the Easter assembly, too – a group poem recital, perhaps, or a song – but with my little group so new there wasn’t the time to choose and rehearse anything, plus I wasn’t sure any of them had the confidence to stand up in front of their peers. Perhaps next term, with whoever was still with me.
    In the meantime, Tommy was only too happy to don his art apron and get stuck in and, having been greeted by Chloe as warmly as if he had just returned from an Arctic expedition, he was soon looking cheerful again.
    My focus now returned to Kiara. ‘You okay, love?’ I asked her as I took a look at her various creations; like the child herself, the array of eggs were all pretty and neatly executed.
    She nodded. ‘I like painting,’ she said. ‘You can lose yourself when you’re painting, can’t you?’
    It was a bit of pocket philosophy, and I wondered whether she’d heard it said, or had realised it herself as a part of the process. I agreed that you could. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘I’ll be walking home with you later, if that’s alright by you. Your mum’s said I can visit so we can have a proper chat about things. See how we can best help you to get back to your usual self.’
    Again she nodded, and agreed that it would be fine for me to do that, but there was something – a flash of something like fear in her eyes. It was gone – or covered up? – in the blink of an eye, too. But not so fast that I didn’t see it. What was it with this girl?
    Rather than the lesson I had originally been planning for that afternoon, I decided that we’d do some work on conflict resolution instead, mostly for Tommy’s but for all of their benefit. It was no big deal to do so; being flexible and reactive to issues and situations was, I’d begun to realise, integral to my job. And not just so I could use a situation one of the children had experienced in order to illustrate some aspect of personal growth. It was also because things could be fine in the Unit one minute and the next all hell could break loose. When that happened, any carefully laid plans went to pot, and alternative tasks and lessons needed to be found. I had therefore learned to be savvy, and to have lesson plans for all eventualities; like the best military generals, I always had a back-up plan.
    The worksheets I had made up for this afternoon’s chosen lesson consisted of a well-known scenario in any school, and consisted, in essence, of just four questions. They were simple questions, too, the first of them being: ‘ Someone who doesn’t really like you is teasing you in front of all your friends. They call you a name that they know will upset you. What do you say and what do you do? ’
    The idea was that the child would write down their responses, then answer the next question: ‘ What happens then? ’ That done, they’d be asked to reflect on the consequences of their response, answering a third question: ‘ What happens next? ’
    This step was designed to help them think about ramifications; how the original act and response to it affected people around them – their parents, the teachers, their friends.
    Finally, the worksheet asked: ‘ Are you happy with this outcome? If not, what do you wish would have happened and if you had the chance to do it again, how could you have handled it differently? ’
    Whenever I had used this same worksheet in the past it had had the desired outcome. Each child was forced to reflect on something that they would have surely experienced, and really think about the consequences of their actions and those of others. It seemed to be a simple yet enlightening exercise and their answers never failed to impress me. Today was no different, each had obviously thought carefully about it and I had to smile when I saw Tommy’s reflective