I went back to school today, as did my colleagues – the pupils are scheduled to start back later this week. It’s my 9th September at my current school though only my 4th as a member of teaching staff. The five previous ones were enjoyed back in the 80s when I was an intelligent but largely unmotivated student (unless the lesson was German, Spanish or English).
Today’s has to be the strangest first day back (from a teaching perspective) that I have ever experienced. We have a body of extremely experienced staff however, the format for teaching in the current crisis is so alien to anything that we are used to that, to some extent, we may as well be novices.
Processes and protocols that we would normally know without pausing for thought, are having to be researched and risk assessments pored over in order to find answers to questions that, in any other year, we would not have to ask.
Can we hand books out? Can we walk around the classroom? Who writes detentions into the students planners? Can we lend the students a pen? It seems ridiculous but we are so concerned to preserve the safety of the students and ourselves that we have to ponder and find answers to these silly questions that we would never dream of asking in non-Covid times.
The timetable is so complicated with staggered start times, different break and lunch times for different year groups and the staff moving between rooms that it has taken twice as long as usual just to write the lessons for this term into my planner. Tomorrow, I will walk the different routes of the room changes so that, once the students return, there are no unnecessary delays getting from A to B – another activity that would not be needed in a different year.
One thing that really impressed me today is my colleague’s determination and enthusiasm to make sure that we get this right. This observation applies across the board from SLT, through the teaching staff to the members of support staff. We want to exude a confidence that allows our students to return at the end of the week and quickly have any fears allayed by our aura of calm assuredness. From what I know of people who work in education, this will hold true in schools throughout the country.
It’s 7 weeks until half term, it’ll be interesting to see what they throw at us!
Poetry for Dullards 