Since the doors metaphorically closed on schools back in March, I have, like all other school leaders been thrashing out reopening plans. 

I’ve attended seminars with those who work on school building planning, I’ve attended local authority meetings own personal network of headteachers, I’ve been in touch with colleagues in international schools who are opening at the moment.

I’ve followed the news about where schools are opening internationally and scoured through articles to find the minutiae of how they are making it work.  

Worst case scenario

I desperately want this to work and had three different scenarios planned out ready to go that were “feasible”, to use the newest buzzword. 

All of my scenarios started with older year groups in school part-time in some form or another. 

This would allow us to watch, learn and adapt our practice for our building and our school before we worked our way down to introduce the youngest children to our new measures - as they will be unable to socially distance themselves in the way older children can. 

This meant, of course, that I when I presented my strategies to colleagues and governors, it came with the caveat that the worst-case scenario was reopening of Reception and Year 1 first of all.

And, lo, so it came to pass that on Sunday, our PM announced that indeed this was the way forward.

As a dear friend always says of herself: “When life gives me lemons, I give them to Ruth to make lemonade.” And so I spent today trying to get towards some sort of plan and hoping that the further advice would provide enough sugar to make that lemonade less sour to drink.

And then came this: “The government’s ambition is for all primary school children to return to school before the summer for a month if feasible.”

I laughed so loudly my husband came to check that I was ok.

Too many challenges

So, let’s be clear: that would mean that two weeks after opening for pupils in the most challenging year, all - yes, all - primary children would be back.

And not back in the sense that our secondary colleagues would have their pupils back, with “some face-to-face contact” (which is eminently sensible as it allows those school leaders to plan a system which works for them) - no, it’d be fling-the-doors-open-and-holler-them-all-in back.

Now, I realise that school leaders are being set up to be the bad guys here and to take the fall so that we can be blamed when this does not happen for not being positive enough, patriotic enough, being lazy or being “balky” (as I was called earlier on social media). 

So let me set out the very simple reason for why this is not feasible: the more people in a building, the less they can socially distance themselves from one another.

We are still being told that the best scientific advice is to socially distance ourselves in our workplace and in our home. School is a workplace for people.  

In my school building, I can have up to 10 children and 1 adult in each classroom and just about maintain social distancing. I have larger classrooms than some.

Putting adults at too much risk

But children are different from adults, you say. Well, I would welcome with open arms the scientific evidence that they are using to make these decisions about reopening schools in relation to transmission and children - I want to be able to reassure parents with this. 

But even with this, we still require large numbers of adults to make a school run. 

Adults who are shielding. Adults who will be travelling to work on public transport for three hours a day. 

Because running a school is a little like running a stage production: parents and politicians may see what is on the stage, but behind it are many others without whom the performance would not happen or, indeed, would fall apart. 

The more children on the stage, the more stagehands are needed. Increased numbers of adults together increase the risk of infection, but we may not have the numbers we need to run in the first place. We are in a numbers game.

But now is the time for cautious steps. We need to see how the lifting of restrictions on Wednesday will impact the R number, then we need to do the same with the part reopening of schools. 

I accept that there are going to be no guarantees when it comes to reopening schools, but the last thing anyone will want is to look back with regret and say that we went too far too quickly.