22nd March 2020.

The news had been talking about it for weeks. Real – yet unreal… theoretical. We were told we were ‘two weeks behind’. But it was like so much on the news: things that happened to other people.

We’d starting preparing for it at school a fortnight earlier. But it was an inbox task – a humorously OTT NPQH Critical Incident.

Even when Gavin told us on the Wednesday that schools would close, I confidently told the staff (all crammed into one room – the last time that would happen) that it would be a fortnight at most… just whilst the storm blew over…

On the 22nd March I went for a run with my good friend, another Headteacher.

“We’ll all be a little different when this is over.” He said.

At the time I thought it hyperbole.

My pandemic in 13 songs.

This blog contains no words of wisdom. No nuggets of educational excellence. It is just some songs I listened to and some thoughts I had during the most bizarre, terrifying, rewarding and exhausting year I’ve known in headship. If I’m honest it’s not really for anyone but me. It’s a story arc written down while it’s still fresh enough for me to remember how it felt.

But amongst my terrible taste in music you might find something that resonates – or even mentally compile a list of your own.

March 2020: The Lottery Winners – The Meaning of Life – (finding our cause in the banality of the first weeks of lockdown).

By the time the lockdown started I’d been a Headteacher for 13 years. It was a job I knew, and I had an experienced leadership team behind me and a staff that were well drilled in front. We felt more than a match for this crisis.

I have to be honest. The first weeks of the pandemic were, well… exciting.

The team moved as one finely-oiled machine; creative and quick. We felt that this was a role we were born to play and we leaned into the chaos and found new ways to work.

Parents were worried about what had happened but the sun was shining and the novelty made us all embrace the day.

April 2020: Nick Cave – Bring it on (rooted in the school community).

April came quickly and events appeared to whirl around us as, all the while,the tempo of this strange empty school settled into a pleasant routine.

Whilst all other staff were put on a three week rotation (two weeks home learning, one week in school) I’d long since decided that I’d be there every day.

Although I’d like to say this was a heroic ‘captain stays on deck’ thing, if I’m honest it was as much about wanting to get out the house and live a ‘normal’ life. This was a community I’d gotten to know and it gave me a sense of self, being the visible defiance against the plague. I was also convinced I’d had the virus in February so didn’t really think I was at risk.

In school it was a happy time. The children (only 40 of them) played in the long, warm Spring sunshine. The pace of life seemed refreshing after years of being constantly on the go. We read stories, played football at lunchtime, we got to know the parents.

The community felt concerned, but not panicky. Even as the numbers of ill and dead ticked up on the local news, it all continued to seem distant within the school bubble. We’d heard about a few parents getting poorly, but nothing too serious – or so it seemed.

If this was the worst the pandemic had to offer, bring it on!

May 2020: Creeper – Annabelle (narcissism and sloth)

“You’ll start with good intentions” said one Italian journalist, a week before the first lockdown started, “then you’ll just sit around eating and drinking!”.

By May the novelty had worn off. I’d started off the lockdown by running everyday, but having made it to 86 days, I got injured and stopped my run streak.

I was also having a (very lovely but carb-tactic) school dinner everyday, along with a crafty cider (or two) in the evening. And maybe a bar of chocolate. Or a Magnum ice cream. Hell, I was leading a school during the plague of the 21st century! I deserved a few little treats.

It appears this is not the diet of champions. I put on a stone.

The novelty of home learning was also starting to wane for some of our families too and we started to worry about those on the margins of our school community who became harder and harder to contact.

Despite the efforts of staff, whilst most children were engaging in home learning everyday, others were not.

The gap between those who had the time, confidence and resources and those who didn’t, were increasingly visible by the day. Just as a trip to Barnard Castle shattered the illusion of national unity, just as the early summer sun faded, so did the notion of a fair and equal impact of the closure on our children.

June: Frank Turner – The Next Storm (Hope and a false ending).

People like a simple narrative. Every story has the same mountain: things get hard, there’s a reckoning, things get better. The end.

So when the children started to return in June, the hope began to rise that the worst was behind us. The storm was waning. It was time to move on.

As school leaders, we were a little dog-eared by now. We’d spent nearly 100 days on duty keeping our communities safe and together, and it was good to get a sense of traction. A groundswell of optimism began to grow – we felt we were leaving the storm shelters and heading back to a more normal world.

July: ELO – Mr Blue Sky (Victory & sunshine)

By the time July rolled around, we were feeling increasingly confident. The pathogen was fading and we were getting more and more children back to school.

We’d got through the whole Spring and Summer with only a couple of staff getting ill and a feeling of exceptionalism was beginning to grow. Maybe the plague had already been through our school in the winter without us even knowing? We’d had a lot of staff and children ill with a mysterious virus in January and February – we must have already weathered this storm without even knowing it!

In the last week of term we ignored government advice and we got back all the children. It was a beautiful, defiant two fingers to COVID which made us all believe that we’d won this pandemic.

As ‘Mr Blue Sky’ blasted out of the playground PA it was all about finishing the year with aplomb. And as a plane drew a smiley face in the sky at the exact moment that the (outdoor) Y6 leavers’ service was taking place, our community was at its strongest.

The virus was gone – we’d won!

August: Franzy Ford – Done (Running out of gas)

“So” said my wife, “the summer holidays at last!”.

I felt nothing – like I’d been psychologically hollowed out.

It was the strangest thing. We’d done well by our school community and the staff team had never been more united. As a Head, I’d not made any gaffs and my stocks were high.

Yet on that first day of the summer holidays I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. Just empty. Empty and sad.

We were six months into the crisis and the moment of rest jarred with the constant rush of what had gone before. A lot of Heads I spoke to reported a similar strange feeling of displacement.

Thankfully I had a holiday bolt hole and spent the next few weeks running on the cliffs of the Isle of Wight.

Up on the cliffs I finally unwound.

Sadly as summer closed ,a good friend, a DHT himself, would lose his mum. Not to COVID, but to the time it took from our health service. A second friend would lose his mum to COVID in the coming winter.

September: The Wonder Stuff – Mission Drive (Re-building).

September brought a sense of clarity and renewal.

We’d lost too much time, and too much learning. It was time to take stock of the lost learning and to come up with a plan to recover it. We worked with the fabulous Marc Roland, an expert on disadvsntaged learning gaps. We didn’t rush to a conclusion, but instead looked at what the evidence and (limited) research from the lockdown had shown us. We spent time time honing our plan and felt confident that we were doing good, evidence-based, thinking.

We were on a mission and were confident about how we would achieve the gains we needed. The SDP felt sharp. The staff (fresh from a period of creativity and innovation during the lockdown) were sharper still. We got through the stuff of school improvement at a lightning pace.

We were all about re-building. All about recovery.

The virus was gone and we now had to move forward.

October: Donovan – Catch the wind (an autumn chill)

We had a pretty uninterrupted run through Term 1, without a single bubble closure or COVID-related distraction.

The work the staff was doing was excellent and there was a feeling of energy flowing through the team.

We got to the end of Term 1 without any closures. But on the first day of half-term the first case came, just as we thought the worst was behind us.

Again, we’d been motoring along thinking the world was righting itself, but (like we’d seen right at the start) seeing the numbers on the national news going the wrong way.

It was about this time that the next member of staff got sick (and would take months to recover). Another lost an elderly parent to COVID. We learned of more grandparents of children at school dying.

Summer faded quickly to autumn. The optimism felt at the start of the month felt shaky by the end. A feeling of foreboding replaced September’s confidence.

November: REM – I’ll take the rain (grinding out the miles).

As we moved into November, the second wave began to break on the school’s shores.

For me, this was a hard time. We’d managed to maintain a consistently sunny narrative throughout the whole pandemic, yet it was plain to see that we were in for a hard winter. Outwardly I was still all optimism. Inwardly I knew that the worst was yet to come.

“It’s not what we want, but it’s what we’ve got.” became the mantra within the team. The positivity never faltered, but now it was an effort – painted on to give hope and encouragement to others on the team.

December: Coldplay – Christmas Lights (A primary school Christmas is what we do).

By the beginning of December, I was worried that staff morale was in danger of crumbling.

The smiles and cheer remained. But it was there behind their eyes.

So we did what primary schools up and down the land all did – what we always do. We did Christmas – as much to busy our minds as to fulfil an age old expectation.

And whilst the ‘Window Wonderland’ had an air of melancholy for the grown ups, the children found it magical. The Christmas nativities (videoed), the Christmas parties (but bubbled). Even Santa made an appearance (although he had to come the night before the parties so as to maintain social distancing).

In the last week of term two more bubbles burst. I spent the first week of the holiday doing Track and Trace (as I had for every holiday since it had become a thing). I spent the second week of the holiday preparing how to steal the staff to stay at their posts as it became clear a second wave was in full swing.

For the first time in the pandemic I knew I’d have to ask people to work knowing that in so doing some would get ill.

January: Nine Inch Nails – Hurt (reaching rock bottom)

Having spent the 4th January’s INSET steadying the staff to ensure that the school would stay fully open – as stated by the PM the previous day – we were lucky enough to have another session with Marc Roland on the research findings from the first lockdown closure and what lessons could be learnt in the future.

Whilst I still didn’t think a closure was imminent, it seemed wise to make some plans ‘just in case’ and the staff spent the afternoon taking the research and putting in place a plan should the worst happen.

At 8pm Prime Minister’s announcement that schools would again close. It hit me like a sledge hammer.

I had no fight left. No words to soothe the community reeling from the latest blow.

In the past year I have never felt lower than after that press conference.

It wasn’t just the shock of being told we were back to square one. Not just the lack of time to form a plan. It was the breathtaking incompetence. The fear that our leaders had no plan.

I spent that night staring at the bedroom ceiling.

But, like thousands of headteacher and school staff up and down the land we just got on with it. We pulled plans together in under 12 hours and settled scared and angry parents.

But the first month of this closure would not be the sunshine and ease of the first.

We had 150 children attending school, including most of the 39 children with EHCPs (our Resource Base never closed) and nearly all the vulnerable children. Unlike the first lockdown, many staff (and all the one-to-one TAs) were needed in school every day.

Throughout January I couldn’t stop staff getting ill with COVID. It had become a risk of the job. Most were ill for a couple of days, others are yet to fully recover. The one-to-one TAs were hit hardest – they had no way of social distancing.

The number of deaths within the school community, largely absent from the first closure, were suddenly everywhere. Luckily no parents, but many grandparents.

Hardest of all, in January, despair took hold in the parental community. We were averaging two new parents a day struggling with their mental health and contacting the school for help. Many more will have struggled alone.

Luckily, we have a big pastoral team who could be called upon to support families, and all the staff did an amazing job, speaking to some parents every day – holding them above the rising tide.

Not one staff member complained, but, when carrying the weight of so many others on your shoulders, it is never left at the school gates each night. For me it manifested itself in vivid nightmares and broken sleep.

There was nothing we could do to shelter from the storm. All we could do is once again signal our defiance at this invisible enemy.

February: Katy Perry – Roar (the forlorn hope)

Whilst we could do nothing about the grim facts of the second wave of the pandemic, we could try to provide some light in the darkness.

So throughout January we invited children to ‘put on something that made them feel powerful’, strike a pose and tell us ‘they’d got this!’.

If I’m honest, this silly little video was as much for the grown ups as the children. The children believed in their strength absolutely, and in a small yet important way it helped the grown ups believe in their strength at a moment when we’d begun to doubt it.

When the pandemic roared, the school roared back.

March 2021: Gene – Fighting fit (Battered but whole)

The children’s return on 8th March was a complete joy. As before, our concerns about their well-being were largely mis-placed.

They skipped back into school as though they’d never been away. Assessments showed that our home learning strategy had worked and that most children, and most importantly most vulnerable children, had kept up with their studies. Parents expressed their thanks for the extra-ordinary efforts made by the team.

I feel satisfied that our school gave everything possible to keep the community afloat.

And I am convinced that schools will never again close. This was a period which will define a generation of school staff when, old and young alike, they proved themselves as in ways which won’t be fully understood for years.

Like all headteachers, it has been both my privilege and my misfortune to lead a school community over the past year – the hardest of my 23 year career.

Despite all the difficulties (and a level of exhaustion which I’ve never experienced) I would not have wanted to sit this one out. We have each measured ourselves against something truly terrifying. And I have yet to meet a member of staff or school leader who doesn’t feel a sense of pride in the contribution which they have made.

But if we could just have a bit of boring, predictable normality now – then that would be grand!