The summer term of 2020 will be memorable. Who would have thought that when the new year broke, we would be on the cusp of experiencing the most gruelling time on this planet testing the leaders of schools and academies to the limit? This is what precisely happened as we approached the end of the spring term. Having originated in a market in Wuhan, China, at the tail-end of 2019, Covid-19, the virus, leapt from bats to humans. Since then, this microscopic predator has wreaked havoc on humankind, laying low many people’s lives, devasting the world’s finances and disrupting civilization as we have known it. The world’s scientists, at the time of writing, are frantically trying to find a cure to fight the enemy and a vaccine to stop it from entering humans and creating more mayhem. At the earliest, they will not know if they are successful until the year ends and 2021 dawns.
Education – among most aspects of life – has been clobbered by Covid-19.
Schools and academies have been compelled to shut down during the summer term of 2020 and, at the time of writing, are directed to reopen in September 2020. However, the government has a fight on its hands with the unions, especially as scientists have now discovered that youngsters from the age of 10 upwards can become infected with the virus and worse still, pass it on to adults – teachers, support staff and, of course, their parents.
School and academy leaders have on the one hand to do everything possible guard their communities – pupils and staff – from the virus and, on the other hand, act as “piggy-in-the-middle” between the government that is determined that institutions will open in September and the unions who justifiably fear for the lives of their members. Their leadership will be severely tested trying to promote peace between two warring factions.
In the middle of it all are the children, who have suffered greatly, the poor and disadvantaged more than the rest. In my mind’s eye, I see two bulls at war with each other – the government on the one hand and the unions on the other. The ground on which they do battle are the schools and academies, and the lives that they imperil the most are the children. I often wish that if they must fight, they take their feuds elsewhere. However, they don’t, and they can’t. The curious feature of this conflict is that both sides aver that they take the stance that they do in the best interests of the children.