There are many joys to teaching - it’s always absorbing, and that always helps during a time of crisis, for instance. But, for me, one of the greatest is when you come across a child who just gets it. Apart from anything else, it makes the job seem so easy. All you need to do is waft around, saying something along the lines of “You do it like this”, and away they go, doing it like that. Job done.

These pupils’ enthusiasm for the subject you are teaching often infects everyone else, too. I’ve never been a mathematician, but the presence of Nathan in my class made everyone - including me - love our maths lessons. We’d talk about how we were going to solve problems or look for patterns, or compete in Speed Maths quizzes, and there’d be a satisfying buzz in the room.

Zoe and Philip turned gymnastics into a pleasure (rather than the sort of pained anxiety brought about by Nicholas, when he showed me how he could balance on the top bars…and then fell off. Or the time when Thomas cracked his head open running in the playground in plimsolls and Ms Gedge needed a sit down). Zoe’s endless cartwheels and perfect forward rolls were a joy, as was Philip’s bouncing, untutored, BAGA badge-free talent. 

Guiding a pupil closer to understanding

And then there is the intense satisfaction to be found from guiding someone who has struggled for a long time that bit closer towards understanding. The moment when a child can finally count to 100, or when they can decode a word that used to be a mystery - those moments are magical. 

Seeing children’s paintings on the wall - being a witness to their sense of amazement that it actually looks good. There are a million tiny eureka moments, sweetened by the fact that they were so hard-won. Making a difference is often the reason people enter the profession; personal and professional satisfaction is a good reason to stay.

Making a difference, closing the gap, catching up on lost learning (or whatever we are calling it this week) is in the news right now. Apparently, the latest plan to pop out of 10 Downing Street is a fleet (a team? An army? Who knows what the collective noun is?) of one-to-one tutors for pupils with “exceptional abilities”, as well as those “in danger of falling behind”. 

Coronavirus: The impact of school closures

The National Tutoring Programme is aimed at offering reassurance and relief for parents, worried about their offspring after the long lockdown. A piece of spin that will sit on the shelf alongside the computers that didn’t turn up, propped up in front of the free school meal debacle and nowhere near big enough to hide the exams disaster and the consequent trauma of the freshers’ week that never was. 

Because, of course, there is no such thing as a quick fix. While there is individual joy in accompanying the leaps and bounds of the voracious and talented learner, and in witnessing the tiny steps made by those who struggle in school, gimmicks such as a short-term programme of one-to-one tuition for a select few are just that: here today and gone tomorrow, their impact minimal. 

And we need more than the promise of a quick fix. Coronavirus has exposed the weaknesses in our society and we can see them, clear as day. We know the work that needs to be done. If we really wanted to make a difference and give everyone the best chance in life, we’d be a whole lot more ambitious. 

Nancy Gedge is a teacher in a secondary school in Oxfordshire