I'm a great teacher, honest. But schools beat me hands down on everything else
Uniform washed, book bag filled, mask on? Then you’re all set for Back To School! Actually, could you put that book bag in this bin for disinfection?
Some – but not all – children in England will be trotting back to familiar playgrounds on Monday. Though several schools aren’t opening and many parents don’t want to send their children in, hundreds of primary schools will be welcoming reception, year 1 and year 6 students, plus the children of key workers. Social distancing will be “encouraged”.
Vast tracts of government advice have been issued to schools about health and safety in this new coronavirus world: an online bible – or at least a fat gospel – of reorganisation. Some advice seems to require building entirely new rooms: “If anyone becomes unwell… they should be moved, where possible to a room where they can be isolated behind a closed door… They should use a separate bathroom if possible.” Even headteachers don’t have a separate bathroom, so perhaps you could give a four-year-old a bucket and shut her in the lost property cupboard?
If you don’t have kids, or you’re not too involved in the care of your own, because of your Important Job, then teaching can seem simple. Set the work; get them to do it. Source a red pen for marking (VG or See me!). But teaching is the nice part of being a teacher; it’s all the other stuff that takes time. You try getting 30 children to hang up their coats on the right clothes hangers, then line up sensibly to walk to another room, carrying the correct bag, and sit down in front of the right equipment that someone (you) has already set out.
Creating an environment in which you can actually teach is the difficult bit. I once spoke to a nursery teacher about getting his charges out into a local garden, to plant seeds and get mucky. It was about 20 steps away from the school. He was keen and wanted to make regular visits, but it took so much time and effort to get the kids into protective romper suits and wellies (which the school had to buy), and then out of them afterwards, that it meant any other activity wouldn’t happen for the whole morning. And, as we all know, three- and four-year-olds have a curriculum to complete.
Related: When should British schools reopen? Here's what the science tells us | Devi Sridhar and Ines Hassan
Organisation is everything when it comes to children. One of the biggest shocks to your system, once your offspring start moving around by themselves, is how much life admin you suddenly have to do. How many of your conversations with other adults, especially your beloved, revolve around regulating and facilitating your children’s lives. You’re not just a taxi driver, but a PA, cook, cleaner, butler. Organisation is 90% of your job, as a parent. What of love, you may cry. But love also means making sure they’re there, on time, in shoes, with sandwiches.
I’ve been trying to teach my nine-year-old during lockdown, and my efforts have not been up to Ofsted standards. This is in no way due to my teaching skills, which are exemplary, but due to my pre-teaching prep, which is not. We do the work on the kitchen table, which isn’t always completely clear. She needs to use my laptop. (No, she doesn’t have her own computer. She’s nine.) As I have to work, this can present problems, and as a result, my daughter has become very good at Fortnite, which she can play on another screen. Still, she made a little book with pictures of flowers in it, labelled, of her own accord, so my non-organised approach is clearly working. So sweet! I thought. So Cath Kidston (RIP)! Who needs teachers? For her next homemade book, she announced, she is going to draw and label all the Fortnite guns. Hashtag cute.
Her school will be open next week but, as it’s an inner city school, with not much room, social distancing is not easy. Each year has two classes of 30, and the only way such numbers can be accommodated is for the classes to attend on alternate weeks. They’ll be divided into groups of 15, each child sitting on a separate desk, with sterilised equipment and pens. Each year group will enter by a different entrance, and will move around the school separately, with different areas in the playground. Shared equipment will be disinfected, hand sanitisers provided, regular handwashing supervised. PPE has been sourced for situations – such as dealing with children with disabilities – where “social distancing cannot be guaranteed”. Lunch will not be a bunfight.
None of this has happened by magic. I hate to break it to you, but no fairies worked the overnight shift to help sort this out. I’m a school governor, so I know the government issued its final guidance just 16 days before they wanted school doors to open, at a time when there were already key workers’ children to teach, plus online work being set for all year groups. The organisation this has required is immense. Could it be that the big guys of government haven’t quite grasped the scale of what they’re asking schools to do?
Though I understand why others aren’t, I’m happy for my nine-year-old to return to class, when she’s allowed. I know the towering effort that has gone into making it possible. Like I said: the teaching is the nice bit.
