Back to School

 It's more than 160 days since schools sent home pupils at the beginning of the lockdown.  No-one at the time, in those bewildering March days, could have known when children would return.

The leaves that were starting to appear on the trees when children hurried home are now about to turn brown.  It's been a long and strange summer.  The family holiday was cancelled.

Exams were cancelled and there were replacement results.  And then those results were cancelled too.  There was constant confusion over whether or not pupils were going back to school.

Home-schooling didn't always really happen and rites of passage such as leaving events had to be called off.  There were more u-turns than a handwriting text book.

But children are now going back full-time for the new school year.  The "new normal" became a lockdown cliche, but going back to school in September is a rare case of the old normal.

So what's it going to be like for these returning pupils?  What should parents be saying to them?  Are they going to be able to get back to learning after months of lie-ins and Netflix?  I think there's a real need to recognise the physical, mental and emotional impact of going back.  But on the other hand, there were positive experiences during lockdown.  They have not had the stresses of school and they have enjoyed spending more time together with their parents, especially Daddy. The lockdown saw a temporary reinvention of family life, with those parents working from home seeing more of their children than would ever usually be possible.  Perhaps children and perhaps also their parents will miss this closeness.

Follow the lines; join the queue; please keep your distance and wash your hands.  I am sure the schools will institute a regime of hygiene and precautions to keep pupils safe.