News & Events

Leadership Likes: Mrs Raja

Mrs Sarah Raja, Head of Junior School

The Cambridge dictionary announced this week that ‘Quarantine’ has been crowned its word of the year, defeating ‘Lockdown’ and ‘Pandemic’. The accolade was awarded after data showed it as the only word to rank in the top five for both search spikes (28,545) and overall views (more than 183,000 by early November), with the largest spike in searches seen the week of 18-24 March, when many countries around the world went into lockdown as a result of Covid-19. Given the events of 2020, this is perhaps an unsurprising outcome and a quick look back at previous words of the year provides an interesting reminder of the topical issues at the time.

In 2019 there was an environmental and sustainability theme as the winner was ‘Upcycling’, following a rise of 181% in online searches for the word since its initial entry into the dictionary in 2011. In 2018 there was an entirely different focus as ‘Nomophobia’ took the crown. If, like me, this word does not feature in your everyday vernacular, then let me save you the trouble of looking it up. Nomophobia is the ‘fear or worry at the idea of being without your mobile phone or being unable to use it.’ I wonder how many of us might have experienced nomophobia? A sign of the times perhaps, but possibly more than we’d like to admit! And in 2017, against a backdrop of a polarising candidate being sworn in as President of the United States of America and widely reported quotes from Pope Francis warning against a rising tide, ‘Populism’ was identified as the word of the year. Defined as ‘political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want’, it also includes the usage label ‘mainly disapproving’ – possibly not the most positive word to be chosen!

It did make me wonder what our pupils would choose as their word of the year, which lead me to survey Year 6. Unsurprisingly there was quite a selection and you can see the most popular choices shown at the end of this article. I was particularly pleased, although not surprised given the positive nature of our pupils, to see that the choices were not all negative – the word ‘fun’ even made it on to the list!

Whilst the word of the year offers an insight into the events of the past 12 months, in the Junior School we have actually taken a more tangible approach to the commemoration of 2020 by taking full advantage of the opportunity offered by the extension and transformation of the Junior Hall into the new Holt Hall, to create and bury a time capsule. The project was pioneered by last year’s Year 6 pupils, who worked together to decide on the contents, with the aim of providing an insight into a year like no other.

And so it was, that last week came the moment for burial, as the building project draws closer to its conclusion. We felt it only right that the girls themselves were part of the moment and so we invited two ex-Year 6 pupils to do the honours. Poppy and Jorjah did an excellent job and wrote the following about the event.

On Tuesday afternoon, we went to the new Junior Hall building site to bury a time capsule. Our form made a time capsule in Year Six, to commemorate 2020 and all the things that have happened this year. It has been hard for all this year, and many have found themselves in challenging situations. In this time capsule we included: a face mask; a hand sanitiser; some disposable gloves; and poems about this year about staying as one community. A BLM drawing by one of our classmates, Ella was also included in the capsule to convey how strongly Croydon High felt about the Black Lives Matter movement. Hopefully, when the younger generation are older they will remember what has happened this year and how important it is to recognise those who have served our communities and those who have been struggling through these hard times.

It was lovely to see the Junior School and chat to some of our old teachers, and to see the brilliant progress of the new Junior Hall. (A special VIP tour!)

Mrs Sarah Raja

Head of Junior School

Year 6 Word of The Year