Reset. Recover. Rebuild.

by Hannah Dalton, @Doddsyinit, and Kiran Mahil, Senior Leaders of schools in London.

With the phased return of pupils already underway in many primary schools, and with secondaries bringing Year 10 and 12 students back shortly, it seems timely to consider what the ‘new normal’ will be in schools. As you are only too aware, there are many matters to consider when planning and preparing the return to school for students and the wider school community.

As well as the overriding need to ensure the safety of students and staff, the psychological impact of Covid-19 and the wellbeing of children and adults has to be recognised. It is important that wellbeing forms the foundation of any approach to opening schools more widely. On this firm foundation, future learning will stand.

Professor Barry Carpenter has written powerfully about the need to build a ‘recovery curriculum’ for students and staff: We have used this article as a basis for creating our own strategy for return which we hope will be useful to other schools. We refer to our document as a roadmap for recovery. It is a tool which is meant to generate productive conversations and help shape a bolder vision of education when responding to what has been lost during lockdown and rebuilding learning and opportunities for the communities we serve.

We hope that this roadmap will act as a living document within schools, not just for the immediate future, but as the landscape changes again in September and beyond. It should help shape a return that is responsive to the needs of school communities.

We have been bold in recognising that profound change may be needed, not only to our daily practices but to the very purpose of the education we provide. We hope you find this useful and would be grateful if you could distribute to your school network. We believe this document will be useful for Primary and Secondary colleagues.

If you have any further questions about this document, or if school colleagues would like to talk through how we are using this within our own schools, please do not hesitate to contact us via email.

Hannah Dalton – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and Kiran Mahil – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.