Schools will open up to more and more pupils until all that are meant to be there can be there.
Nobody can say for sure when we’ll get to that point. But it is certain that some schools will get there quicker than others, not least because parents will have a view on safety and risk.
Managing the partial opening of schools has been stressful for school leaders and teachers. It’s been tough too for those who sincerely support them.
This stress may increase as we progressively exit lockdown. We are going from a crystal-clear-to-most message of ‘stay at home’ to something more nuanced. Nuance means more open to misunderstanding, intentional or genuine.
At this point of the journey, what might we think about and how might we think about it?
3 Rs for back to school – resilience, renewal, reboot
Resilience
Working out who are vulnerable among pupils and staff, working up programmes of remote learning, creating work rotas for partial opening, and then opening successfully, all in a matter of days, tells us that there’s reserves of resilience in our schools.
Add managing on-going communication with the community when so much is unclear and clarification comes bit by bit, whilst also managing personal matters,and one could say there’s true grit in our staff rooms.
But in our hearts, of course, we know there’s more to school than childcare. There’s a purpose to school. We strive to make it a safe place where learning is encouraged and character and resilience nurtured.
Return to school for the 95% of the school population that haven’t been attending involves, at first, adopting the measures necessary for safety – more hand washing, deep cleaning, staggered breaks and lunches, teaching rotas and stricter movement control.
These steps are about the survival stage of crisis management. Moving from surviving to thriving means more.
What we determine our and our system’s resilience to be will depend, ultimately, on our ability to secure the learning and nurturing we aim for, come what may.
With that end kept firmly in mind, we work backwards, plotting our intended actions in months, weeks and days.
Too few facts, lots of speculation and a fast-paced environment can make us despondent. Energy is sucked out of the war-room.
It helps to work up a few scenarios for the reality we might find ourselves in: worst case, best case and somewhere in between. What if there’s a second or third spike and the return to school is interrupted into and through the autumn? What if September comes and all can return and there are no interruptions? What do we know about what significant others such as regulators have said and are doing?
The hard facts and robust assumptions in our scenarios can be refined as and when we get information that we can rely on.
Visualising what realities might unfold, and what we might do if they happen, keeps us on the front foot – a powerful feeling that keeps despondency at bay.
Renewal
Teachers and pupils will need to get to know each other again.
Despite heroic efforts to put remote learning in place if there was little to begin with, it is clear that not all pupils will have engaged as much as we’d like, for whatever reason. Nor is remote learning a full replacement for the classroom and school.
Robust tools such as GL Assessment’s diagnostic assessments can help us be forensic in identifying gaps in learning.
Strengthening and investing in a blend of remote and direct learning provision is crucial as we have no way of knowing how long it will be until we can provide uninterrupted ‘in school’ provision for all year groups.
Teacher-led digital materials from well established providers like GCSE Pod can help close gaps and form part of a well-managed, well-directed blended learning experience
Reboot
It is hard to imagine a return to business as usual. Perhaps it would be best not to.
First and foremost, the pandemic is a human tragedy.Loss of life, loss of loved ones
Other important loss too.
Prof Barry Carpenter, CBE, Professor of Mental Health in Education, Oxford Brookes University, says that young people will have suffered five kinds of loss – loss of routine, structure, friendship, opportunity and freedom.
Anxiety, trauma and bereavement are common responses to loss.
School leaders and teachers themselves will also have experienced loss. And for every one that has had their moral drive and sense of vocation renewed or reaffirmed there will be another who’s thinking that the demands of the job may be too great.
There’s a rhythm to a school day and a school year. It can give comfort and stability. But the beat at the heart of what we want most from our schools is the relationship between teacher and child.
Our routines and structures in school need to support the renewal in emotional and mental health that all will need.
Schools are not the masters of all the routines and structures they have. Our schools are in a web of statutory duties, policy, inspection and exams. Government and official bodies, inspectorates and intermediary organisations have responsibility for such things.
All can do their bit. For a ‘new normal’, familiar but better.
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Asgo 