Harvey Willgoose died following an incident at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield on Monday this week. Within two days it was already a short note on page five of many newspapers and web sites. Just a footnote. Yet All Saints School is forever a changed school and the impact on each member of the school community will be unique, it will be disturbing and throw up many questions.
Where is Harvey now?
Why did it happen?
How do I feel about others involved?
How do I look to my future when life seems so fragile?
What does this mean for me?
Can I be the same at school?
Why do others react differently to me?
What do I do with all these feelings?
Every school community meeting such violence and sadness is extremely vulnerable, from the chair of governors to the youngest year seven pupil. They will need a lot of love, patience, and readiness to learn from this all too common experience.
Last year there were 57 murders involving a knife or sharp objects. 17 of those murders were committed by under 16 year old pupils. There has been a 94% increase in reported knife crimes since 2014. This is an epidemic and a scourge on our youth and education system. It has been a priority for politicians of all parties in recent decades. Commentators point to drugs, to gangs membership, poor parenting and lack of policing. Everyone seems to be worried because they know that the root of the problem is anger and fear. Fear of other people, fear on the streets, fear about bullying. How can any policing, school policy or security system manage such fear and anger without turning our schools and our wider communities into prisons, threatening the peace and innocence of the young? I have no answers.
I do know that All Saints School in Sheffield will be meeting the challenge head on with the wisdom and kindness that has been the hallmark of the school for decades. It is a place where the young people know that they are loved, a community that they can call a home. But a home that has now been desecrated by an explosion of fatal violence. The school will be responding with respect, understanding and affection to the students and trying to keep the normal routines of as a lifebelt in a sea of confusion. The school will rise again and continue to be a welcome home for so many young people as it has for decades. The love and dedication of the staff will have been tested and not found wanting through this disaster.
Please keep them all in your prayers and read the reflection below in their name as they move through the challenging weeks ahead.
To the school community at All Saints Sheffield....
Don’t try to make sense of this
Don’t seek reasons or revenge.
In the end some justice will be done
But for now, we need to simply pause
To reverence the passing of a life
To count the years unlived
The gift of a life unshared.
The bruising shock of loss
Tremors through a school community
Through families and staff
Leaving them weak at the knees
Speechless before such sadness.
May we be able to hold each other
With gentleness and listening hearts.
May we create pools of silence
In which we can sink some of the grief.
May we draw close in sadness
And become a family of faith.
Because we believe beyond words
That we will see Harvey again.
“The ties of love and friendship
Are not broken by death”
We are told in the Catholic funeral service.
Right now, such words make no sense
Loss is our heartfelt focus.
But we know that in time,
All this loss will be caught up
Into the story of cross and resurrection
And we can entrust Harvey to Christ.
But for now, let us feel the hurt and sadness
And hold tight to each other in hope.
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