On Christmas Day in 1940, a 21 year old Private stood alone for seven hours in the pouring rain on the seafront of Ryde, in the Isle of Wight. He guarded a barrage of artillery pieces which pointed out into the grey channel towards an unseen enemy which had, only months earlier, driven the British army into the sea.

Hope was vanishingly thin. The nation was told to prepare for an invasion. An invasion which could easily be lost. It was the darkest days of the war.

But Frank Birch stood on the seafront in the driving rain.

On Monday I will explain the current state of affairs to my staff.

Like you all, I have watched the news unfold over the last fortnight as the virus is accelerating away in the wrong direction. It was supposed to be all over by Christmas: a tough Spring followed by a recovery with a gradual reduction in threat and with it a loosening of the bubbles and masks and dinners in classrooms.

But the virus is going in the wrong direction and on Monday I will welcome my staff back to a rapidly changing threat level and a instruction from the DfE to ensure ‘business as usual’.

I have always been able to tell my staff that things are getting better; becoming safer. But in the next two months this won’t be clear. I will not be expressing an opinion on my instructions from above; the decision has been made by the DfE.

Indeed, in the last 48 hours (since I first wrote this), the government and unions have locked horns over whether to close or remain open – with less than 48 hours before the term starts. This adds another layer of angst and confusion to a scene which is already confused and tense. Moreover, this latest move pits staff against school leaders, as, I fear, it will be they (not the DfE) left to make the decisions on the ground come Monday morning.

The scope for a leadership mis-step at a school level is high. Like all school leaders, I therefore have to formulate and then articulate some certainty and clarity at Monday’s INSET, prior to the children returning on Tuesday.

The words I, and other leaders, say on Monday will matter.

So, I will tell my staff this:

I will tell them that, whilst fraught with uncertainty and risk, the best place for my own children and the community’s is in school.

I know that others may have different views on this, and that there is no scientific report available that can definitively say that keeping primary schools open is safe. But closing would cause a different strain and danger to both the children and their parents which could lead to worse outcomes long term. And whilst the unions maintain that this would just be for a fortnight, sadly, I don’t things will be any better in fourteen days.

I have seen families unravel over the last nine months and the mental health of my community suffer. I have seen jobs lost and financial struggles bite hard. An extended closure would drive more of this.

There is no best choice – just the least worst.

But for me, with local infection rates low and which have stayed flat since mid October, I would prefer to press on with my school open and then adapt to the local situation if and when the situation changes.

Secondly, I will try to separate the facts from the spin which is coming from all quarters. For me, it is important to use local information to inform what risk I think exists for my staff and the children. In my part of the world, the infection rate is low and has not changed since November, and this will be key in making the argument that it is premature to change the plan for our school when the facts surrounding the local risk have not changed.

Likewise, both the Unions and the Government have been selective when quoting what SAGE advised on 22nd December. Their minutes show that their exact comment was that it was “highly unlikely that measures with stringency and adherence in line with the measures in England in November [with schools open] would be sufficient to maintain R below 1 in the presence of the new variant”. This has been wrongly quoted by the NEU and Unison as SAGE telling the government to close schools – they did no such thing (it is beyond their remit). However, it is equally disingenuous of the Government to declare schools completely safe.

We all need to assess the risks for ourselves based on the information available – especially when that information in unclear or based on a political standpoint.

Thirdly, I will tell them that we must do all we can to stay safe, but be honest in the fact that we cannot be 100% safe in our work right now – it isn’t possible. Whilst good cleaning, ventilation, distancing etc etc etc will help, some of the outcomes regarding Covid getting into school will be a matter of luck. We are where we are.

I will acknowledge that we are in for a bumpy ride. Whilst the vaccine is coming and will end the pandemic by summer (and the current second wave crisis by March) the next eight weeks will test us all. There is no way around this fact. We will have to view bubble closures as a certainty not a possibility, and learn to live with this considerable disruption until the vaccine cavalry arrives.

Then I will remind them of our school’s core values of Respect, Pride, Bravery and Success. I will remind them that our vision is to Build Champions through Extensive Opportunity, Expert Tuition, Purposeful Practice and Personal Effort. I will remind them of our school’s story – one of overcoming adversity. I will remind them that throughout 2020 we stood together as a school and forged unbreakable bonds with each other and our community in the white heat of the crisis.

It is important that we know and understand why the school exists, and so we must tell this story.

Then I will address the elephant in the room – the collision course between the DFE and the unions. I will leave it to staff to make their own choices about their own actions.

Because this will be a decision which each person must make for themselves. Each must weigh up the risks as they see them and their own circumstances. There is no calculus I can give them to arrive at an answer which allows children to keep learning and all to remain safe – there is none.

Each will have to search their souls for their personal answer – and I will respect them come what may.

Finally, I will remind them of Frank Birch, my Grandfather, who stood alone in the rain on Christmas Day in 1940.

A news article earlier this week put it well: pandemics aren’t new – they’re just new to us; crisis’ aren’t new – they have been a feature of every generation up until the baby boomers. We have just come to believe that a crisis would never occur in our lifetime when they have, in fact, occurred consistently to every generation throughout history.

This is just our crisis. The one which we have to deal with and which, as teachers, we are called upon to ‘do our bit’, and accept the risks this brings. Sure, the narrative said that it should have been done and dusted by now – but it’s not.

And whilst this is worrying and disconcerting, we live in one of the richest countries in the world at a time where technology and science has blunted the worst the pandemic could have brought.

In short: we are more than a match for the months ahead.

Unlike Frank, stood in the rain, we know that a vaccine will end this crisis in the Spring. We just need to hang on until that moment arrives.

And then we will get on with the business of Teaching and Learning.

There will be much we can’t control this winter in our school so we will focus on the things that we can.

We will fill our INSET day with making plans and sharpening our toolkit so that we can make every teaching day available to us count.

We will keep busy and engaged in our sphere of control. We will be mindful and vigilant to the risks but not endlessly dwell on them – it would be futile and exhausting.

And we will see what the next fortnight brings.

“I became a wealthy man that day.”

My Grandfather told me about his Christmas on sentry duty a year or so before he died. The day was etched into his memory, like many days we are experiencing will be etched into ours.

As he finished his tale, his eyes lit up.

“Of course, it wasn’t a bad day in the end” he beamed.

“You see right next to the battery was a huge manor house where all the great and the good of the island were gathering for a Christmas meal. They saw this young squaddie in his sopping uniform, alone at the side of the road, and every single guest stopped and thrust a note into my hand and thanked me for my service.”

“I became a very wealthy man that day.” he said, squeezing my hand and chuckling to himself.