As schools begin their planning for the larger scale reopening of schools in September, teachers and school leaders will, naturally, be considering what students need most on their return to school.
There is talk of “recovery curricula”, “emotional wellbeing days” and “significant pastoral time” as part of the reopening provision.
While this is well-intentioned, I passionately believe that focusing on wellbeing interventions is, at best, misguided and, at worst, dangerous.
Coronavirus: Reopening schools in September
Let me explain.
What children need most after a time of significant disruption to their lives is normality.
Pastoral leaders, more than most, know the importance of routine, boundaries and normality following a period of challenge in a young person’s life. We see it all - family bereavements, assaults, relationship breakdowns. The importance of normality around a child’s life after an event such as this is crucial.
That’s because a sense of normality provides security: while everything else is falling apart, the safe space of school and the reassuring predictability helps children work through some of life’s most challenging moments.
Trauma-aware, not trauma-led
While schools do need to consider individual students’ circumstances, and some of those will be harrowing and heart-breaking, what the student body as a whole need is the reassurance that school hasn’t changed.
Students will seek comfort in that familiar sense of routine that they find in school, and that they have so missed during the partial school closures. We owe it to them to provide this while providing more targeted support to those in specific need of it.
In lessons, students need teachers to get on with the heart of the job: teaching and learning. What they don’t need is lessons that constantly refer to the pandemic, that urge them to talk endlessly about it.
A welcome distraction
Our social exposure to talking about the virus is high - it is already infiltrating everything we do. Young people need an escape from this, a place where they’re not constantly thinking about the deadly virus that may or may not strike at any given time.
For some, time to think about algebra will be a welcome and refreshing distraction from the constant anxiety surrounding the virus.
Webinar: How to support mental health in schools with professor Tamsin Ford
And here’s the thing: if we expect traumatised children, if we put on endless amounts of PSHE, if we constantly talk of the emotional toll of the pandemic, if we normalise the expectation that for every child, emotional damage will have occurred because they’ve spent more time with their family, we will do more harm than good.
Creating problems
Think for a moment of those students who have coped perfectly fine - their anxieties will grow: should I be anxious? Should I have hated every moment of lockdown? Why aren’t my reactions normal? Why am I OK and everyone else isn’t? If everyone’s worried, then what am I missing? What’s wrong with me?
Making erroneous assumptions about trauma will not help the vast majority of students. What will help is a clear focus on boundaries, routine and learning in an environment where pastoral issues naturally emerge.
And “naturally emerge” is exactly what these issues will do. Pastoral staff and teachers deal with pastoral issues as a matter of course. Every member of staff has always had a role to play.
The somewhat patronising assumption that we will need further support with this is, frankly, nonsense. This is in our blood. This is what we do. We know the signs of students not being quite right. We know when to support. We know when to back away. In short, we know how to do our jobs.
Amy Forrester is a Tes behaviour columnist, English teacher and director of pastoral care (key stage 4) at Cockermouth School in Cumbria
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