What with everything that’s happened this year, it seems quite likely that primary teachers will find themselves rather less laden with presents at the end of term than is usual. Presumably, secondary colleagues can prepare to travel home virtually bag-free.

Not that anybody comes into the job for the end-of-term gifts - after all, how many “Best Teacher” mugs and coasters could one household need?

There can be something rather more touching, though, about the words that accompany the gifts. Not always - I’m thinking of the unlabelled, half-eaten box of Maltesers I once received, fully wrapped - but occasionally. 

I always urge new teachers to keep hold of some of the more uplifting cards and notes - whether they come from the child you made a connection with, or a parent grateful for the time you’ve given them - to recall in times of harsher words.

Thank-you pizza

For the past 16 weeks, many teachers will have been receiving those kind words via other means, whether it’s during the phone calls home, or on learning platforms. In some cases, maybe gifts and cards have still been forthcoming. 

At my own school, we were blessed with families kind enough to send in a pizza lunch one day, and for several gifts of chocolates and biscuits during the weeks of lockdown. 

But, for others, the words of thanks that are so highly deserved have been somewhat lacking - not least from the highest quarters. So let me, if I may, try to right at least part of that wrong, and share some of the words that ought to be said about school staff this year.

Necessary thanks

Thank you to everyone one of you who happily relinquished your two-week break at Easter to make sure that lives could be saved in hospitals, and that children could be kept safe and entertained without the constant worry of wondering whether their parents were safe at work.

You made a real difference and, in an indirect way, helped to prevent more lives being lost.

Thank you to every member of school staff who put their own children into some form of childcare provision, alongside others, so that you could help serve your community - whether that was running groups in school, delivering food parcels, uploading details to the school meal-voucher website or keeping the office operating so families had a port of call at a challenging time.

Thank you to every teaching assistant who stepped up to cover a class for the first time, to every teacher who managed a group outside of their experience, every lunchtime supervisor who found themselves running the length of the corridors trying to dish out hot meals to various “bubbles”, and to every senior leadership team (including my own) who had to step up at no notice when the headteacher went into isolation.

Battling feelings of guilt

Thank you to every member of staff who has shielded themselves for the past 16 weeks, having to battle their own feelings of guilt, and constantly offering to complete whatever tasks were feasible from home.

Your efforts were no less valued than anyone else’s, and your colleagues wouldn’t have had it any other way. Indeed, some of them might well have frogmarched you off the premises had you tried to come into school.

And thank you to every premises officer who kept on opening up the school, rain or shine, on holy days and bank holidays, and made the arrangements - including ordering gallons of soap - that kept the rest of us safe.

Every one of you deserves a well-earned holiday now. There’s more work to be done in September, so now’s the time to rest and recuperate, with the satisfaction of a job well done.

Michael Tidd is headteacher at East Preston Junior School in West Sussex. He tweets @MichaelT1979