Reporting

Huw Williams | 14:10, Saturday 23 March 2013 | Turin, Italy

Back in the days when I was in school, there was always something good about the approach of Easter, the days just began to get noticeably longer, and occasionally slightly warmer. Once the Easter holidays arrived, especially in those years when we weren't sitting exams, it always felt like a short skip and a jump into the long Summer holidays.

I suppose it has to be something to do with spending our formative years in school, but I still feel as though the real start to the year is in September and that we structure the following months around "terms" with the dangling carrots of incentive bookending each session - Christmas, Easter, Summer holidays. And although I've now reached an age where I have been out of school longer than I ever spent in it, it's hard to break that old rhythm of the academic year. So now Easter is upon us, planning the new term ahead has a distinct mood of looking to finish the year well. The one blot on the landscape of the Summer Term in school was always that is was report time - that opportunity for our teachers to assess (and more significantly for our parents to read about) our progress or lack thereof. 

In the old reckoning, we are about to complete our fifth term here in Torino, and yet I still find myself telling people that we are new to the city. At the same time I am mindful that now would be a good time to take stock, to assess our progress to reflect on how we are doing and what we "must do better"! Before we know it we will be at the end of our second year here, so please pray that we can assess the past and plan the future well.