The reception children jigged to ‘Mr Bluesky’ booming out on the school PA, waving to friends that they’d not seen in months. One slipped the grip of her mother’s hand and ran over and (before I could stop her at a safe 2m) gave me a hug.

But the parents stood in complete silence.

To the children the temperature checks, cordons, 2m warning posters put up by the council, and the dots they had to stand on whilst they waited to be greeted by their ‘bubble teacher’ were just something new. And as my school counsellor pointed out – when you’re 5 most things are new, so to them this wasn’t so strange and unexpected – as most things are strange and unexpected.

For the staff too, this didn’t look strange at all. This had been our reality for the past eleven weeks. I’d been in school every day during the lockdown so it was just another day.

But for the parents it was startling. A manifestation of just how much life had changed in the last few months. And many must have wondered whether life would ever get back to normal again.

A few years ago I wrote a blog about surviving term 6. It described the dying weeks of a school year like a space capsule returning to Earth: electrifying, terrifying and not at all certain to end well. It compared the ending of the film Gravity (holding on and hoping the capsule doesn’t explode) to the ending of Armageddon (striding across the runway as a returning hero).

It outlined a few fundamentals which I’d learnt during a decade in headship which could make for a smoother landing. Back then I could never imagine the term 6 we are all living through now so I guess it’s due an update. As always, the ideas aren’t big, nor clever, but you might find something which resonates if you’re new to the job.

1. We still don’t know what we’re doing.

As I mentioned in my last blog, we are all making this up as we go along. That guy on Twitter talking wisely about his ‘Recovery Curriculum’? Making it up. The academy CEO talking with great certainty about their fabulous catch-up programme? Made up. Blogs about what to do in term 6 during the tail end of a global pandemic? A best guess.

Don’t be surprised if you’re wracked with uncertainty. We are all making it up as we go along. Some things we’ll get right. Some things we won’t. Don’t congratulate or castigate yourself too much – there’s no guide book for this.

2. Following the H&S plan makes everyone feel safe.

We are only a few weeks into a partial re–opening so don’t get lulled into a false sense of security that this is all over and the foul miasma has gone away.

That Safety Plan and Risk Assessment which you slaved over through half term and which kept you awake all night still needs to be followed. This not only keeps people safe from the virus, but it also makes children, parents and staff feel safe – and that builds trust in things you will need to suggest in the future.

3. Don’t wait for an official to tell you what to do.

Throughout this crisis the temptation has been to sit and wait for the DfE or LA to come up with a plan for school leaders to follow. However, it was clear pretty early on that the cavalry weren’t coming and that we’d be on our own, finding local solutions, for much of the time. As we come out of the crisis this isn’t going to change.

So we are making our own plans. We are trying to predict what the next problem coming over the horizon will be and to start coming up with a workable solution.

Right now for us it is all about getting Years 2-5 back into school for a couple of days at the end of term (an idea we nicked off the ever inventive Forest Hill Partnership). We won’t wait to be told how to do this by someone in high office (they don’t know). Instead we will work with the resources we have to find solutions which work for us.

Chances are, your local networks will have a better idea of the problems and solutions locally than any detached Whitehall official.

And most of all don’t be afraid to make bold decisions that you know will benefit your community.

4. Think strategically again

This is something I’ve found very difficult over the last 100 days since schools were ‘closed’. I have existed in crisis management mode, every day completely consumed by operational matters and short-term plans. But if we are to transition to the next phase of recovery, we must all start to think more long term.

For me, this means reaching for the trusty RAP, the tool I return to every time my head is too full to think straight.

It’s not the one which I lovingly had on my wall back in March – the SDP has been completely up-ended. Instead it focuses on the key strategic tasks I need to focus my tired mind on over the next few weeks: HR, routine End of Year task, and (most importantly) identifying what the key strands of next year’s SDP are likely to be – including considering how we will need to re-focus teaching to catch up children in reading, writing and maths.

Whilst I don’t know what exactly I’ll need to do, I can get my Subject Leaders to look at what essential content is likely to have been missed and what can be left out in the following year to make space for this content to be taught.

The RAP tells me what my SLT and I need to focus on each week and keeps us thinking about future strategic plans.

5. Plot a course which gets you safely to the end of term.

The end of Term 6 is always crazily busy without a global pandemic thrown in! This year adds a whole new layer of complexity to an already frayed and complex few weeks.

Everything from key dates to clearing common areas to stowing resources to whose job it is to clean the staff room fridge on the last day is included. It may sound incredibly OTT, but it makes sure everyone is busy doing the right things.

So we create a day-by-day planner for the last three weeks of term. Like a ship in a storm, everything goes better if everyone knows what jobs need doing and do the right jobs with the right people at the right time.

And it makes sure that everything gets done.

6. Manage a school community split in two.

It’s been tough managing two, now separate, groups in the school community.

One group have their children back at school. The others don’t.

Those in school are getting back to normal and the, once silent, parents on the playground once again laugh and chat. However, there are then those whose children are in years 2-5 who are still at home and, with teachers’ time increasingly spent managing face-to-face teaching, no longer have the level of support they once did.

We are finding that despair is beginning to keep in to this second group with home learning taking a nosedive and parents longing for some good news.

So we have put in place things which bring us together. We have twice weekly zoom assemblies where the children in school and those at home can feel part of the community together. We took the decision to close on Wednesdays to all but essential workers’ children, which allows time for teachers to re-connect with their classes still at home.

We have continued with our weekly newsletter throughout, but now it must serve two communities (home learners and those in school). As such there is much talk of future plans to get back to normal, celebrations of home learning and honest reflections on the unfairness of the current situation (but never complaining about the powers that be).

We have to spread the message of hope: we will be all back together soon!

7. Make sure there are regular team meetings

In all likelihood, your team won’t have been together for many months. And whilst you may have held video meetings to address the immediate operational issues, little time may have been spent discussing what will be done come September.

However, with ever louder voices on high suggesting that a full school re-opening in September is now extremely likely, we need to start discussing what that will look like in terms of physical organisation of spaces, pastoral support, and now as importantly, what the curriculum needs to look like when we return.

We have therefore started holding full video-conference staff meetings at the usual time after school each Wednesday to start discussing these issues.

Interestingly, for the first time, the TAs and admin staff are also invited. This often wasn’t possible in the real world as many finish work at lunchtime. However, their input has been critical and, having invested in some proper video conferencing equipment, I can see us now always including support staff in this way once life gets back to normal.

8. Don’t shield the team from all the difficult problems.

As a leader, it’s tempting to try and solve all the problems yourself, protecting the team from the difficult decisions which need to be made.

Whilst there are many occasions when this is true, sometimes getting the whole team to ponder a problem has a better outcome – particularly if the only solution lies in the team having to go beyond their usual duties and compromise their time.

Just this week I had such a problem: how to open more essential worker bubbles without sending some Year 6’s home. Whilst I had an idea of what had to be done, putting the scenarios out to staff at the weekly meeting quickly established a consensus as to what needed to be done – even at the expense of the team’s workload.

9. Don’t assume every child is traumatised.

Whilst there will be some children who have been exposed to trauma during this prolonged absence from school, it is wrong to start by assuming that every child has been damaged.

I am not suggesting that schools won’t need to consider carefully the pastoral needs of the children when they return, but I think talk of elaborate ‘recovery curricula’ which assume trauma could be not just counter-productive, but also encourage children to believe they are traumatised when they in all likelihood aren’t.

We will of course be ready to support those children who have been traumatised (and many of my staff have been completing online training on this in readiness) but nor will we underestimate the children’s resilience and scope for ‘post-traumatic growth’.

10. Get a haircut.

As soon as you can.

Because we’re not savages.

So now let’s look for land on the horizon

We have all been on a strange, surreal, emotional and exhausting voyage over the past 100 days. We have had to do things we never thought possible. We have agonised over whether we were doing enough. We have stared at the ceiling in the small hours trying to empty our heads of a thousand whirling problems. We have led our communities through the eye of the storm and now we see land.

The crisis isn’t over. But as the summer holiday homes into view – an ever enlarging speck on the horizon – we can finally see land.

And back on dry land we can rest and recuperate, before putting out to sea once more in September.