Dear Friends,

I hope you’re keeping well.

We’re still in the midst of a terrible crisis, as Covid 19 continues to affect our daily lives, the most important thing is to look after ourselves and our loved ones, be hopeful and look ahead. How do we remain hopeful in such stressful times? There isn’t a cookbook recipe, of course, but maybe in times like these we should value exploration and change even more, and not be afraid.  Sophocles once wrote: To a man who’s afraid, everything rustles.

At Pilgrims, we’re not afraid, and we don’t stand still, we keep on drilling for novelty, drilling for creativity, I call it. Our mission, now more than ever, is to continue to create an environment for teachers to do their very best.

There are a few things in the pipeline I’m very excited to tell you about.

First of all, Pilgrims has decided to open up to our colleagues teaching languages other than English. Soon we will start offering workshops (strictly online for now) in Italian for teachers of Italian as a foreign language. A recent online event Pilgriims co-hosted with Alma Edizioni (a great and adventurous Italian publisher) drew some 2500 attendees, and the enthusiasm for humanistic and creative teaching was palpable. Workshops in other languages will follow soon.

Secondly, we are launching the Pilgrims Café, a monthly online event streamed live which will feature Pilgrims trainers talking about their work, sharing activities, interviewing each other, or giving short talks. And in true Pilgrims spirit, on top of all that there will be space for poetry readings  musical performances and other fun things. We would also like to ask our community to join in: so if you’ve been to Pilgrims and want to share a memory or anecdote, or perhaps an idea you picked up on your course, we would be very happy to give you the virtual floor, so please get in touch (chaz.pugliese@pimgrims.co.uk) The first Pilgrims Café will be held in January but we thought we’d give you a taste and on December 12th Pilgrims trainers will be getting together online to share a few ideas with you, tell a few stories and wish you happy holidays. You’re all invited to participate and to chip in, of course! 

Dates and links will be advertized on our Facebook page (Pilgrims Teacher Training) so keep your eyes peeled!

Finally, the schedule for our 2021 Summer School is now up on the website: we have the usual formidable array of Pilgrims unique courses. Please take a look here: www.pilgrims.co.uk . We hope to see many of you in Canterbury next year!  

Till next time, stay safe, stay well.

Chaz  Pugliese

Director of Education, Head of Teacher Training, Pilgrims.