This week, I had a call from my hairdresser. Like everyone else, I have been waiting for this call for some time, and I was delighted to hear that, if the easing of coronavirus restrictions continued as planned, she could fit me in in early August.

It was not the prospect of having my hair cut that made me a little emotional as the call ended. Instead, it felt to me like a sign that relatively soon, I might get to do “everyday”, “normal” things. It is not the only sign - across the UK, even if at varying paces, restrictions are being loosened, and people are catching up with family and friends, enjoying first trips to the shops and returning to favourite pastimes.

But my delight was quickly replaced with a deep sense of anxiety and worry. Because while it might feel occasionally, for brief moments of light, like it is over - it is not. And by that, I don’t just mean the threat of coronavirus. Of course, that is not gone. Today alone, 186 deaths of people who had tested positive for coronavirus in the UK were announced by the government. Over 1,000 people had tested positive.

Coronavirus: College students should get summer food support

More: NUS calls for £60m student hardship fund

Background: Year 11s feel forgotten: teachers, please reach out

What I actually mean is the individual struggle that this pandemic has caused for so many. I will freely admit that the past few weeks have been much, much harder than the initial weeks of lockdown. Loneliness and feelings of missing family and friends, which have been the strongest emotions right from the start, have begun to feel entirely overwhelming at times.

Coronavirus: ‘A sense of normality still seems a long way off’

Work stress seems much more difficult to break through, small wins seem irrelevant, while small defeats seem insurmountable. A sense of normality still seems a long way off, with no college visits in the diary and my normal, after-work life still restricted to occasional, socially distant walks with individual friends. And it feels harder to talk about it - because we are meant to be through the worst of it, aren’t we?

At this stage of lockdown, with the end of term in colleges and schools imminent or, in some cases, already upon us, we absolutely must not lose sight of people. As patience runs low and tiredness increases, the new lockdown habit of regularly checking in with people - students, colleagues, friends or family - will seem more difficult and less pressing, but it is just as important.

Why has that one colleague who was the life and soul of the team Zoom quiz for weeks suddenly stopped attending? Or why does another friend keep going quiet when others share stories of reuniting with family? Don’t just move on - the chances are they are not just distracted by the warm weather.

Disengaging from education

Now is the time to keep our eyes on learners, too. This week, Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes echoed concerns eloquently set out by Alfie Payne in Tes only weeks ago: what about those Year 11 students who, by now, have had months away from the classroom, and will not return to school next term? How easy is it for them to be lost to the system now? To just disengage from education for good?

Or consider students who have struggled with online learning - or for whom digital poverty has meant they simply cannot access it. This week, apprenticeship and skills minister Gillian Keegan told me that every student she had met had enjoyed the online experience. But it is worth pointing out that, because of Covid-19, her college visits have been virtual and those meetings online. It would be all too easy to forget the learner who battled siblings for access to devices. Or the one who logs on to every class but stopped listening weeks ago when they didn’t understand that day’s topic.

And as relief that the end of this term is near sets in among college staff everywhere, spare a thought for learners currently receiving food support from their college. Did you know that, according to National Union of Students’ research, a third of FE students have had to cut back on their spending on food since the start of the pandemic? And with summer jobs, including those in hospitality, likely to be few and far between, these students must not simply be forgotten about. The government says that while the current summer school meals support does not apply to 16- to 18-year-olds, it “will provide further details for further education institutions”. That announcement cannot come soon enough.

It would be easy now to assume that it is all over and, metaphorically, head to the beach. But for the sake of young people, as well as our colleagues, friends and family, we cannot afford to lose sight of those around us.