Walking across the fields in Emmbrook last weekend, with the sun shining and the grass freshly cut and left in piles, the smell reminded me of sports days at school.
The summer term was always the best, being allowed to play on the field at lunch, making nests out of the cut grass piles, practicing for the various races and running out at the end of the day into the sticky sunshine.
When we look back over the last year, the smell of freshly cut grass also reminded me of quite how much our children have missed out on at school.
It isn’t just the academic side, important as that is. It is all the things that build confidence, foster independence, allow for relationships to be built, to learn about team spirit, of what it feels like to cheer others on, to win or lose and then to keep on trying.
It is the time lost building grass nests and pretending to be a frog baby.
In church we pray each day for all the local schools, for the children who attend, their families, the teachers, headteachers and all the staff who work there.
We know that they have done a fantastic job over the various lockdowns and are continuing to do so now. They have helped the children cope with the pandemic, work out how to learn online and now how to learn back at school.
And we will keep on praying for them, for the joy of all that the summer term brings, the restarting of activities, for the support and care that the staff show to pupils, for all that has been missed and all that is yet to happen, for the grass nests that are begging to be built.
The Revd Cara Smart is assistant curate of St Paul’s Church, Wokingham, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham