Hats off to the countless educators making heroic efforts to get pupils and students through these times, in ways big and small. All of it helps maintain some semblance of routine and continuity in a world out of kilter.

But does everyone realise the lengths they are going to? Earlier this month, a newspaper published a piece by a former secondary head in Scotland, who observed that NHS staff had “gone the extra mile”, then concluded with the question: “Is it too much to ask the education sector to react equally selflessly?” In less febrile times, the teaching profession would be more likely to react with a collective eye-roll to an article like this, but this time the ire poured out - as, indeed, did the dismay that the piece had been penned by a former colleague, albeit long retired.

There can be no better example of the selflessness of school staff than the constant examples posted on Twitter of PPE equipment produced by schools for key workers. What started as a trickle around a month ago - when Tes Scotland reported on one teacher who was taking two hours to produce each visor for a local hospital as he honed his technique - has become a torrent. See, for example, the ViseUp project, with several schools at its heart, which reported last Friday that it had produced more than 20,000 pieces of PPE (and counting).

And that selflessness, compassion and drive has been turned inwards, too, towards the school and college communities now dispersed away from their usual gathering points. School staff have been doing their utmost to stay in touch with young people and guide them through this crisis. From sending individual postcards to children in early primary to remind them their teachers are still thinking about them, to assembling online learning programmes almost literally overnight, school staff have dug deeper than ever to support their pupils.

We have highlighted some of the ways nurseries, schools and colleges have gone many extra miles, such as Drakies Primary, in Inverness, which has impressed with its virtual assemblies, and St Columba’s Primary in Cupar, Fife, which effectively started its own TV channel for pupils. In the home, too, parents and carers are going to huge lengths to keep going with something that is at least vaguely recognisable as “school”.

But we all need to take care not to set the bar at what may be an insurmountable level for some. Anyone who peruses social media at the best of times can become dejected by the false reality it depicts - by the heavily edited, relentlessly positive versions of people’s lives found on Instagram and Facebook. And there’s a danger, similarly, that teachers and parents overwhelmed by the current situation will feel paralysed, not inspired, by examples of education flourishing in the midst of lockdown.

A tweet last week from Maureen McAteer, of children’s charity Barnardo’s Scotland, resonated with many: “I’ve been ‘off’ with my kids this week. We’ve not done ANY arts and crafts, baking, creative projects - nada! The truth is we’ve read, bickered, watched TV, laughed, huffed, played cards (a lot) hugged and survived together. #goodenoughparenting”.

There’s a balance to be struck, then, as this most unusual of school terms begins, as teacher Adam Black recognised in a piece for Tes Scotland last weekend. “I’m not going to spend the next however many weeks or months getting angry with my children for being stuck in this situation with me, and I’m not going to spend it getting angry with myself as a teacher,” he wrote. “I’m just going to try to do both as best I can.”

Most teachers and families will do whatever they can for the country’s young people. But the priority, now more than ever, must be to keep them safe and secure. Let’s start with that, and build from there.

@Henry_Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 24 April 2020 issue under the headline “Schools are keeping together the communities forced to stay apart”