As I’m writing this, it feels as if our staff team are like the little Dutch boy at the dike. He put his finger into the hole to stop water flooding through. He stayed there, cold and lonely through the night, so the other villagers could make the necessary repairs.
We teachers have got our collective finger in the dike for now. But, behind the dam, there’s a flood of anxiety, grief, anger and sadness in our community. How will we keep ourselves from drowning in the torrent?
I love the diverse neighbourhood that we serve - it’s so full of energy. We have children from 23 different ethnicities on roll at Sheringham Nursery School. We’re in Europe’s most diverse region: the majority of families are from black and minority ethnic background. And here in the Little Ilford ward in East London, we’ve seen the highest death rate from Covid-19 in the whole of the UK.
A community united against coronavirus
Illegally high levels of air pollution affect our community all year round. We live with car-dominated streets, narrow pavements and countless fast-food outlets. As a result, our community has some of the most overweight and least healthy children, and adults, in the country. That’s made people more vulnerable to Covid-19.
Even more shocking is the state of housing. When my family moved to our two-bedroom house in East London, the previous owner left us a copy of the Victorian census entry. It recorded nine inhabitants. That seemed unbelievable to her. But I regularly visit small houses close to Sheringham that have been split into flats and are inhabited by that many people. It’s not unusual to visit a family of four in a one-bedroom property.
Stuck inside
Imagine all those young children stuck indoors in tiny properties, often in multigenerational households. How will they be when we see them again?
The pandemic has also brought out the best in our community. We’ve worked with the local Highway Vineyard Church to deliver foodbank parcels and other essentials every day. Neighbours have helped each other. Our team has made over 1,000 phone contacts with families. We’ve helped parents to keep their children occupied and purposeful. We’ve supported parents suffering serious mental health breakdowns. The presence of an emergency morgue in our area hasn’t done much to lift morale.
It’s not my place to grandstand on the topic of racism. But it is my duty, as an educator and a citizen, to support black and minority ethnic groups as they demand a fair deal from our country.
It’s inexcusable that London’s 2020 housing is, in some respects, as bad as it was in Victorian times. Early years providers and schools can’t keep trying to compensate for children’s experiences of living in cold, cramped and noisy housing.
But, I’d like to celebrate the resilience of children in these desperate times. Like the little girl who picked up the home play pack left on her doorstep by two team members, Fliss and Adam. They stood back as she beamed and giggled, clapped her hands and said: “Happy, happy!”
Dr Julian Grenier is the headteacher of Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre. He co-leads the East London Research School
