This wasn’t really intended to be a serious blog, but today I am harbouring a subtle sense of melancholy when I write this. I apologise if this comes across.
Having, for whatever reason (or in reality a combination of many reasons), been 5 years late in completing my 5 year plan set back in 2010, I now move to a Senior Leadership post in the midst of the greatest global disaster of our time.
I am currently trying to manage the lead in time as I’m due to start after Easter. When I was offered the post back in January, I had imagined a smooth and event free move to my new school- that is in as much as this kind of upheaval can be smooth and event free. I am genuinely so excited to start. If you are forced to take 5 years longer than intended in achieving a life goal, you can be forgiven for starting to doubt it will ever happen, and that was where I had got to. I had thought 2010-2020 had been a really challenging decade. By the end of January 2020 I was floating on air, this decade was different, better……but then corona hit.
Like watching the start of some sort of disaster movie, our life now, here, today on 29th March 2020 is so very different to that that I had ever imagined. I had envisaged the next week of my life being in my current school, finishing up with Year 11, sorting my Lit Co and teaching group handover, saying goodbye to my adorable (if a little noisy) form group… but this wasn’t to be. I am leaving a school that I went to back in 2013 without even a collective goodbye, and while this makes me a little sad, I know so many people have, and will be, losing so much more.
Six months ago if you had told me that our daily conversations would be about ‘social distancing’, ‘flattening curves’. If you had told me that the ExCel Centre in London was being converted into a 4000 bed emergency hospital or that people were dying of a global pandemic in their 1000’s, then 2020 is not a place that I would have wanted to go.
In 1997 Baz Luhrmann released a track called ‘everbody’s free to wear sunscreen’, as well as being right about appreciating the beauty of your youth (and not being as fat as you think you are), he also talked about worry. We all have had many sleepless nights worrying about things that never happened. On the track Baz talked about the real troubles in your life not being things that you would imagine, that they are the things that blindside you at 4pm on an idle Tuesday. Well today is our idle Tuesday. No one expected this situation, it is…… ‘unprecedented’.
Edutwitter is one of my favourite ways to waste time. It’s obviously never actually a waste of time. If you want a thousand different perspectives on a situation, then post on Twitter and ask people for their opinions. I find myself strongly agreeing with exceptionally well reasoned, polar opposite views. Sometimes we forget on Twitter how context is key with people’s views and opinions. As a comparison; what is right for my two year old son, in practice is not what’s right for my son in Year 10, but my values and desires in wanting the best for them are the same. So if your school is really successfully achieving live teaching and a tight routine at this time, or if your school understands that your students are best focusing on managing mental health by encouraging family time – or anywhere in the middle, then that’s ok. Don’t argue about it. Don’t share an email written by a stressed teacher just hoping that their students don’t fall behind. The reality is that right now there is NO best way. In a few years we might be better able to make a call on what ‘should’ have been the right way, but not now.
Everyone wants the best in this the most dire of situations. In my own family my eldest two sons have really coped well with their mornings of directed study and the contact they have still had with their teachers and peers. With my reception aged son we have had no choice but just to do what we can, punctuating his day with bits of work, screen time and outside time. He may get a bit behind, it can’t be helped.
I try to be respectful of other people’s views but at this time have found myself actively disagreeing with people on social media. Parents at my sons school being critical of teachers being 5 minutes late to register their online class. Who’s to say they don’t have a toddler at home who needed a nappy change, who’s to say the teacher isn’t ill, who’s to say a million other things…… please don’t get at teachers. We are doing our best at a time, and I will repeat myself here, we DO NOT know what is best. One thing is for sure, it’s a marathon not a sprint.
Some of us need to keep our minds busy, to remain occupied, others need some down time to concentrate on their own coping mechanisms. I imagine that some teachers will lose their lives trying to support children of key workers. This is our reality. We don’t have many options. A rota of any sorts makes it essential for us to put our lives and the lives of our families at risk, this is a sobering thought. I have not left the house in nearly a week. Wednesday is my turn on the rota, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about going in. Who knows what is best here?? There probably is a best way, but different best ways depending on who you are. We are making a collective sacrifice to keep the vital cogs turning. Everything has been stripped back to necessity.
So this blog has turned into a COVID-19 blog more than a making the leap blog. I’m afraid that is because in making this leap the corona virus has totally changed the landscape in which I exist. After Easter my husband becomes a joint Acting Headteacher at his school (in addition to me moving school). As a family unit when you try and plan ahead it is always best to deal with small incremental steps well spread out. It probably isn’t advisable to have 2 significant role changes in the middle of a global pandemic but it is where we are. As long as we are healthy I have every confidence that we will do ok. If we are not healthy we will have to accept that things might not be ok but we are not alone in this.
I am currently healthy so I am trying my best to work ahead in my new role, just in case I become ill. I have made lots of phone calls to my new colleagues and have more planned for tomorrow. I am trying to plan to put in place an infrastructure in a school context I am not fully familiar with and so am reliant on the expertise of those who are. These are only things that are reactive to the current situation, but the focus I suppose is damage limitation, with a sprinkling of foresight – keeping an eye on how this might all play out. All while being mindful that there is no best way…
Our absolute priority is trying to keep people safe and if whatever we do each day does something to achieve this (even if it is by doing nothing), then this might be the best way?? Please stay safe and be kind.
Mrs M’s Teacher Talk 