Monday 15th marked our first day of wider opening to Year 10s

To mark the occasion and reflect on the strangeness of everything, I decided to keep a diary of the day as it unfolded. Here’s what happened.

Coronavirus: Reopening our alternative-provision school

7-8am:

There’s no getting away from the fact today feels like the first day of term - in June.

It’s also weird because I’ve worked the whole way through, but this time we’re not in the hub school, we’re back in our building. I’m actually super-excited, plus a tiny bit nervous - like a child who comes back after the holidays saying they’ve forgotten how to write.

I call all the families who have pupils coming in today, just to check if they have any symptoms in the house. The responses range from a friendly, but bemused, “How odd that you have to call. Of course, I wouldn’t send him in if he might be poorly,” to a warm, “We’re all fine, lovely, he’s chomping at the bit to get in.”

8-9am:

Arrive in school. Sanitise everything and reflect on how odd it is to have tape marking out 2m down the corridor and less furniture in classrooms.

Smile at the new murals that have been painted by our in-house artist and amazing TA, Chrissie. “I love our school,” I muse.

As staff arrive, we all have a laugh at the new temperature gun. I guess that in some ways this laughter covers some uncertainty and the disbelief at how things have changed in just 12 short weeks.

9-10am:

Student number one arrives. He’s happy to be here and with just a brief “good morning” and a laugh over the smell of the hand sanitiser, he’s off up to class. 

Five minutes later, student two arrives: a Year 10 boy who has had an hour-long drive to get here in his taxi. He climbs out, pulls off his face mask and smiles a massive smile. All the staff scream in excitement, from their socially distance spots.

At this point, we’d all usually hug him, but in the absence of being able to do that, we give a virtual high five. It’s genuine. We’ve all really missed our students.

We catch up and he talks non-stop about his life in lockdown. We empathise, laugh and share our own anecdotes before he heads upstairs to start his English lesson.

The other students arrive quickly now, but all patiently wait for their turn to be scanned and sanitised. The only slight anxiety expressed by a student is when a Year 11 girl thinks I’m about to Taser her when I forget to explain what the temperature gun is.

We end up laughing together and it feels good.

10am-12pm:

The students are being amazing. Though social distancing has been a struggle at times, with a friendly reminder they have been quick to correct.

The school feels alive again, even with just five students, with the usual chatter and the odd excitable or frustrated swear.

The staff are back in their stride (most have worked in our hub school anyway or have been teaching online - contrary to popular belief, it’s not been a 12-week “holiday”) and seem to be enjoying the 1:1 time with students.

One member of staff comments on the sheer volume of work that has been produced. These students haven’t just missed us, they’ve missed working.

One student who has really struggled with lockdown has opened up about the events in her life during recent weeks and seems visibly more settled, having off-loaded.

I think this will be a common theme as more students return.

12pm:

It’s time for Bubble 1 to leave.

As they retrieve their phones and face masks from the lockers in my office, the students chat (at a distance) and reflect on how good it is to be back.

I wryly wonder how long this will be the case, and, getting the joke, the pupils comment with a cheeky smile that “it’s better than being stuck at home”.

I laugh - it certainly is…

1pm:

Bubble 2 arrives in the form of one lively Year 10 boy who speaks (seemingly without taking a breath) from the moment he arrives until the moment he leaves at 3pm.

Before placing his mobile in the locker, he proceeds to call another student on speaker, who then asks when she can come in as well.

I feel a spike of real anger towards this virus as I have to tell her that we can’t have everyone back on site yet (she’s Year 9), because I really do want all these students back with us. We feel a bit like a fractured family at the moment.

I don’t want to give the impression that all our pupils want to attend. The other student in this bubble didn’t make it in today, unfortunately.

We call to make sure things are OK (they are), but I wonder if there is some anxiety for her around attending.

Safeguarding calls and “eyes-on” visits are continuing as they have been throughout lockdown, so I make a note to arrange a visit if she doesn’t come in next time.

3pm:

All the students have left for the day, so we can now reflect on how things have gone today as a team. Staff appear in equal parts exhausted and exhilarated.

As teachers, we thrive on our relationships with students, and are so used to having real face-to-face contact that today has been a welcome homecoming.

I know some of our pupils are missing the physical touch we usually offer in the form of hugs, shoulder squeezes and high fives, but staff have found other ways to meet this need (my personal favourite being the overdramatic “throwing” of a hug)

There are some health and safety tweaks to the environment - tables to be moved, areas to be taped, posters to be displayed, etc - but overall we agree that the day has been a success.

Next, I open our school communication platform to see how things have been going for our online learners today.

As ever, there are varying degrees of engagement, but for the most part we’ve had a successful day.

We’ve also had a letterbox full of brown envelopes containing work dropped off over the course of the day - again reminding me (as if I needed reminding) that “PRU kids” can, and do, achieve amazingly even in challenging circumstances.

6pm:

The next few hours pass in a string of phone calls and emails (my inbox is pinging infinitely more frequently than it ever did before Covid-19 - and it was pretty busy then!)

I look at my to-do list and realise that I have added as many things today as I have ticked off, as has been the same since we moved to our distance model of learning on 19 March.

I log off. Some of this can wait until tomorrow. 

I’m heading out of the door as the cleaner arrives to sanitise the building so we can do this all again tomorrow.

“Good day?” she asks, and with a smile I nod. “Bloody great.”

Kate Martin is vice-principal at Restormel Academy, an alternative-provision school in Cornwall. She tweets @k8martin