After a challenging year, reaching the summer holidays in July felt like a real accomplishment: the end of an arduous journey. 

Except it wasn’t the end: it was only a brief respite, as we passed through the eye of the storm. 

What awaits us as we return in September could very well be more of the same - only, this time, we’re expected not only to weather the storm but to overcome it.

Just as we all broke up for the summer, the DfE threw its latest 20,000-word guidance document on reopening schools on to its website and sent school leaders off into the holidays with a task on their hands. Not only are we to prepare ourselves for fully opening schools, with hundreds of children returning to our sites from September, but we must equally be prepared for fully closing them again - and for every eventuality in between.

And not enough, this time, to do the best you can in trying circumstances. This time, not only must schools continue to operate (as we did before), but we must also operate a full teaching programme for pupils who are learning remotely, despite the many challenges this entails.

‘Meaningful and ambitious’

One can only presume that the government felt the heat from a few tabloid columnists before the summer, and so are determined not to be blamed for any shortcomings in provision this time around.

The guidance is quite clear: in the event that schools are closed, they must continue to offer a full, sequenced curriculum, with as many teaching hours as the normal day, with “meaningful and ambitious” assignments set each day, “frequent” explanations of tasks, preferably via video, and “daily contact with teachers”.

No matter that the reason for your closure might be that some sizable proportion of your staff has been struck down with a deadly illness. That’s no concern of the DfE - they’ve got bad headlines to avoid. They’ve said that it must happen, and schools must make it so. Or at least, if they don’t, then schools must take the blame.

There is a promise, this time, that laptops will be provided in the event of a lockdown for all those children who don’t have access to them already. But then we’ve seen big announcements of this sort before, and it doesn’t always seem to go to plan. 

So not only must schools prepare a full online video curriculum, ready to launch at a moment’s notice, they also need to have a paper-based equivalent ready to roll, presumably accompanied by some sort of delivery service.

Tough times ahead

And that’s not the half of it. This isn’t just some operation you need to be planned out in theory in the background, just in case the worst happens. This plan needs to be ready to kick in for a single pupil.

That’s right. If an individual pupil has to isolate, then your offer must “meet the same expectations”. 

No doubt any school would want to go out of its way to support a child in real need, having to isolate because of a serious medical condition. But does the same apply if a family takes a two-week overseas break, knowing that they’ll have to quarantine for a further fortnight on their return? And who should be providing this material, while classroom teachers are still doing the day job?

We’ve tough times ahead, and schools will pull out all the stops to help every child, as they have done from the very beginning. But you can guarantee that at some point, we’ll hear from some politician or second-rate hack that we’re not working hard enough. 

Good luck with it, everyone!