Sometimes I feel sorry for politicians. Constantly berated by different sectors of the country for not solving their problems - or for creating them - when, in fact, the tools at their disposal are frankly quite limited. 

Not all problems are easy to solve, and politicians are not always best-placed to solve them. But they can, at least, use the powers of government to help tackle life’s great challenges.

One great challenge for schools at the moment is how best to ensure the continuity of education for pupils affected by the pandemic. After an extended period when most pupils were not in school, the ideal would be for a rapid return to normality, but sadly that’s not to be. 

Coronavirus: Legislation over remote learning

Since March, we have all been working to find ways to stay in touch with our communities, provide the most viable remote education, and to ensure that families who are otherwise unsupported continue to receive the support of their schools.

The government stepped in - eventually - to support with the basics, like vouchers for families who normally depend on free school meals. But it was schools that ensured that the gaps were truly plugged. It was pastoral leaders and safeguarding leads who made sure families were safe, connected and cared for. 

It was teachers who made contact with pupils, to ensure they were connected to school, and who stepped in to provide emergency childcare when everyone else was being told to stay at home to save lives.

So it’s all the more galling to be treated as though schools aren’t bothering, and have to be forced to support families by the threat of legislation. No doubt it will have taken the wind from the sails of a few journalists who were looking for an easy shot, but what difference will it really make to pupils? Is it to anyone’s benefit to have school leaders and governors focused primarily on the remote-learning offer when the vast majority of pupils are still in school?

Can legislation work both ways?

Schools have plenty of deal with this term, from picking up the pieces of family lives damaged by the pandemic, to planning an adapted curriculum to bring together the varied needs of pupils returning from different levels of home support.

But, instead, energy will be wasted in schools on producing online resources ready for “immediate” use, even if they might not be needed at all.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it were easy, but the Department for Education appears to have decided to overlook the challenges of remote education in favour of simply legislating to insist that it happen. No matter that some communities lack the reliable broadband connections on which much remote learning would depend. No need to worry about the school communities where teaching staff are themselves the ones suffering with Covid, and so unable to provide work. No concern over their dwindling budgets and rising costs.

It is, of course, the risk of politicians being in charge of things that they will always default to new legislation. But do they really think that that’s a useful way of solving these challenges?

NHS hospitals struggling to continue with routine operations and screenings because of an influx of Covid patients? Don’t worry about providing extra resources: just make a law that says they must. 

Supermarkets struggling to keep up with the demand for home delivery services? Simply legislate to say that they must.

Perhaps legislation can solve all the problems that the politicians don’t seem to be able to solve in this current crisis, too. Maybe it’s time they stopped talking about unprecedented challenges: let’s just make a law that says they have to fix the situation, now.

Michael Tidd is headteacher at East Preston Junior School, in West Sussex. He tweets @MichaelT1979