In olden times - 10 or so weeks ago - my working week would begin on a Sunday night with preparation and planning for the days ahead. Nowadays, since the coronavirus lockdown took hold, there is no point. My life has become almost completely reactive and any plans are subject to change as soon as the emails hit on Monday morning.
Here, then, is how things go for me on a typical week now:
Monday
I get up at 6.30am rather than 6am, as I am saved the half-hour drive to work. At 7.30am, I press send on emails and wait for the madness. Some mornings, there are few replies and I get on with other stuff but, often, staff start getting in touch before 8am. There are queries from the local authority, guidance from the ever-expanding number of short-life working groups discussing the return to school in August, and occasional questions from a parent or pupil.
A short break for Joe Wicks at 9am - pretty much my only contribution to homeschooling - is followed by a meeting on our building refurbishment. Plans still need to be made even when nobody is allowed in to do any construction. Then there is the daily check on my assigned registration groups to make sure they are keeping in touch with the school. Pupils are getting better at this but a substantial number are showing very low levels of engagement, and chasing them up can be very time-consuming.
Throughout the afternoon, the emails rack up, interspersed with phone calls to staff for a catch-up, and to the occasional pupil or parent to discuss options and timetabling. If I can, I cook and let my wife get on with her own work. With a depressing inevitability, this has panned out disproportionately, as she gets on with the majority of homeschooling. This is patently unfair and will require some serious making-up.
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Tuesday
Things start to get more crazy: early morning emails and an increasing number of meetings. From 8.30am, we have senior management, departmental meetings and extended management - all discussing the latest news about educational recovery. I soak up all the questions but can provide few answers, merely reassuring people that things are being worked on and guidance will come soon.
Just before lunch, I am off for a stint at a key worker hubs in Inverness. Most of the actual work done at the hub is by the wonderful team of PSAs (pupil support assistants), teachers and other volunteer staff, who allow our NHS workers, delivery drivers and others to keep the nation going. I, meanwhile, mostly answer emails and analyse documents.
Wednesday
After a particularly disappointing early-morning meeting, there are a few minutes to gather my thoughts before the main business of the day - delivering food parcels to our new National 5 hospitality class. Some spectacular organisation from our home economics teachers has seen a deal done with one of our local food suppliers will enable them to cook the first eight recipes of the curriculum while stuck at home. Many of our parents - living in one of the most deprived areas of the country - are finding lockdown particularly hard and the food we are providing is a big help.
A very enjoyable afternoon is spent socially-distanced from pupils and parents around Inverness, chatting about how we’re all getting on under lockdown and comparing home-schooling techniques (coming to the conclusion that none of us is very good at it). I head home to eat with the family then spend a long evening looking at all the emails I missed. I manage to watch the last half hour of Little Women with wife and eldest daughter. It looks really good but I feel I may have missed some crucial plot build-up.
Thursday
The second hub day of the week. Following a delightful meeting with the humanities faculty (lots of questions from them, very few answers from me), I leave home to the sound of youngest child screaming at her mother that she doesn’t want to do any more maths, and head into Inverness. I stop at M&S to buy weekly provisions for my parents, and have a lovely chat with a former pupil who works at the checkout.
Another quick stop to drop off a Chromebook at a pupil’s house (knock on door, leave on doorstep, retreat) and then to the hub for a midday meeting with other heads to discuss schools reopening in August. Every potential solution brings new problems, and time is getting critical. The only thing I do know is that, by the time we get pupils back into school, we shall have sorted out enough of them to make a decent stab at it.
Friday
By the end of the week, things have ramped up to fever pitch. Meetings are full-on feedback extravaganzas, reviewing all the developments of the past few days. At a guidance meeting, we discuss contact with pupils and how we can ensure they are all safe and secure for the weekend - if they’re not, we need to get in touch pronto or notify the relevant people.
In between all this, there are questions about the hubs for vulnerable children, guidance from the Scottish government to consider, debates from fellow heads to engage with, timetabling, IT and staffing queries, and myriad minor issues to resolve.
They’re not all done by mid-afternoon but some can be finished off later. It’s 3.30pm and I have to break for the weekly work quiz, if only to show staff that you can rise to the heady heights of headteacher while still being ignorant about the main ingredient in a macaroon (although my knowledge of heavy metal has me, unusually, leading for a while).
It is a bit of fun, though - and that’s the best way to end the week with staff.
John Rutter is headteacher at Inverness High School, in Scotland
