For all of us, personally and professionally, this past year has been unlike any other. School staff have had to pull together more than ever to traverse the changing landscape of education during the pandemic. We have faced challenges never conceived of before and faced intense scrutiny, with the schooling of children and young people attracting a whole heap of attention and debate.

As a headteacher, I’ve relied heavily on my staff’s professionalism, dedication, resilience and creativity. Fortunately, we had a strong bedrock of wellbeing and positive relationships at the core of our culture to help us through. I welcome the increased focus on self-care, mental wellbeing and kindness. 

We have surely learned, if we did not know already, that what really matters first in education and schools is our people
- everything else flows from them. 

The fightback against Covid-19 has brought out the best in many, and that strength of character in adversity will be remembered when we return to calmer seas.

We have seen many examples of how support staff, teachers and school leaders have gone above and beyond throughout the pandemic to ensure children and families receive the help they need. The demands on our time, and the physical and emotional toll on all of us, cannot be underestimated or overstated. We have drawn on reserves of resilience we never knew we had, but the workforce is exhausted and we need to return to a more balanced way of working as soon as possible.

Headteachers are always at the centre of the communities and, over the past year, my peers have performed remarkably. From closing schools to operating hubs; from carrying out risk assessments to rearranging furniture; from managing positive cases and self-isolation to planning for “blended learning” then suddenly reopening full time, then moving learning and teaching online again - there has been an endless list of operational demands and we have delivered every time. (I haven’t even mentioned the Scottish Qualifications Authority debacle, but that’s for a different article.)

The best teachers and leaders are optimists - you really need a positive attitude to be in this line of work. While the challenges have been significant and the toll has been high (especially, and saddest of all, where people have suffered or died from this horrendous disease), if we ask ourselves if there any positives from the past 12 months, the answer is, in short, yes.

There is no “new normal” - we cannot go back to how things were before. The recent report from the International Council of Education Advisers advocates embracing digital learning, expanding outdoor learning, reviewing the curriculum and reforming the exams system. Meanwhile, a recent report by educationalist Michael Fullan, The Right Drivers for Whole System Success, is a call to arms across society to tackle depressing and unacceptable trends in inequality, poverty, right-wing rhetoric and climate change. (There’s more on
this in a discussion I had with Fullan in our Changing Conversations podcast.)

If we use Covid-19 as a catalyst to empower (remember that word?) everyone in education to unite around wellbeing, social justice and improving our communities and planet, then there will have been positives indeed. This will require new solutions, though, and new ways of working. School leaders, in particular, will need to embrace the art of the possible.

It’s been a roller-coaster year with endless twists and turns. More change is coming - and, as always, education and schools will be at the heart of it. 

Billy Burke is a secondary headteacher, past president of School Leaders Scotland and co-host of the Changing Conversations podcast

This article originally appeared in 19 March 2021 issue