Created by teachers for teachers, the Oak National Academy has grown rapidly since its launch, with 2 million lessons delivered in the first week and double that in week two.

Its architects, Matt Hood and David Thomas, have been more than transparent about the set-up, and it has played well with many schools.

Teachers have worked their proverbial socks off to produce online content and there is an internal quality assurance system in place.

The lessons are easy to access, subject-based and designed to last an hour.

Muscle, in the form of support and resources, was provided by nine of the most influential multi-academy trusts in England, including Ark, Inspiration, Dixons Trinity, Star and United Learning, with the government’s favoured Ambition Institute and Teach First organisations right up there in support.

The Department for Education also primed the operation with an initial grant of £300,000.

So what’s not to like? It would be uber-churlish to criticise the Herculean efforts of all those who gave up days, nights and weekends to get the show on the road.

And how many schools can conjure up the Archbishop of Canterbury for morning prayers or the secretary of state for assembly? It certainly trumps the vicar or local ward councillor.

Oak National Academy: the long-term legacy

However, we must ask what the potential legacy of Oak National Academy will be when we learn to coexist with Covid-19 for the long haul.

It’s clear that it’s secured full Cabinet Office approval and has passed all the ministerial and special adviser stress tests.

And when Sir David Carter, former national schools commissioner, tweeted that this could be a game-changer, it’s clear that its impact is being watched closely.

After all, we can be sure that it will be “efficiency, efficiency, efficiency” for the next decade in education.

From early years upwards, cuts will be introduced once the clapping for key workers has faded and the economy stutters back to life. It will make austerity look like a walk in the sunlit uplands by comparison.

And the school system will be required to produce results at the lowest cost possible. The £300,000 down payment from the DfE could turn into its wisest investment ever.

Could we be witnessing the creation of a national curriculum template from the engine rooms of the very institutions that were gifted a dispensation not to follow the national curriculum?

Will the coronavirus crisis change education?

Already the designers of Oak materials talk of a curriculum rather than one-off lesson plans, which makes good sense but hints at something built to last.

What will be the shelf-life of this initiative, with its lessons packaged broadly into one-hour, subject-specific bundles? 

This is a 20th-century model of learning with Latin in the vanguard: rolled out for the short-term but with serious implications for the future of English education policy.

There’s much speculation about what will happen when schools reopen in England, with a consensus that online learning will play a bigger part. This may be so.

But we also need a national period of reflection that admits a wide range of experiences from 23,000 schools. It cannot be dominated by those who are on ministers’ speed dial.

The English education system has an opportunity to make a leap forward from all this. It’s on hold for the moment, of course - and Oak National Academy has rolled its collective sleeves up to help get us through the crisis.

But the future must look very different as the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic are digested and we rebase the curriculum.