1st May 2020- UK confirmed cases 177,454. Total deaths 27,510. Government hit its 100,000 testing target at 122,347. Burger King opens its doors for deliveries.
4th May 2020 – Health Secretary announces pilot of Coronavirus contact tracing app which will take place on the Isle Of Wight. The number of patients in hospitals in the UK with COVID-19 is under 13,500, 35% below the peak on 12th April. Public Health England launched a review into the factors affecting health outcomes from COVID-19 to include ethnicity, gender and obesity.
5th May 2020 – The UK death toll reaches 29,427 and now has the highest death rate in Europe. At the daily briefing today Dominic Raab, the Heath Secretary said “Britain will have to adapt to a new normal. It’s clear that the second phase will be different. We need to adjust to a new normal, where we as a society, adapt to safe ways to work, to travel, to interact and go about our daily lives”
7th May 2020 – UK reaches 30,615 deaths.
8th May 2020 – The UK celebrates VE day at home. Lots of people have picnics in their front gardens. We share a minute silence at 11am. We sing ‘We’ll meet again’ in unison and the Queen addresses the nation at 9pm.
10th May 2020 – Boris Johnson addresses the nation. The UK is entering phase 2- Smarter controls. He tells the nation that if you are unable to work from home, you should go to work. He informs the public that you can travel and can have unlimited time outside. The message changes from ‘stay at home’ to ‘stay alert’. Scotland, whales, and Ireland do not ease lockdown. Boris Johnson briefly introduces the idea of an alert system consisting of levels to communicate the current level of risk clearly to the public.
11th May- Boris Johnson publishes a 50 page document, what he calls a road map to the UK’s recovery and a phased return to normality. The document contains guidance for places of work to ensure social distancing is adhered too. Today in Parliament, Mr Johnson outlined the 3 steps of the easing of the lockdown.
This scared the heck out of us. I spoke to our local cluster of heads for 2 hours after Boris’ announcement. How were we to do it? That night my son was supposed to have a sleep over for his Beavers Scouts. We had planned a sleep over in the lounge! There wasn’t much sleep to be had, especially for me on the sofa, and a million worries: I recorded my thoughts…
“I love my job! Granted sometimes it is the most stressful, at times confusing, demanding occupation in the world, but in the past I would not have wanted to do anything else. However today I sit here wondering if there is anything else left that we do not do: Teacher, leader, manager, clerk, finance officer, cleaner, caretaker, carer, mental health worker, social worker, and health care assistant. The list never ends and that’s just my job description, never mind the staff that work in our school.
I am not sure when schools became care providers and stopped being “education establishments”. Where we measured a classroom to fit kids in with a 2m gap, when I have to work out percentages to see how many kids we can have in school safely and then be told to triple it. Where I spend my days drawing up reopening plans and risk assessments. Looking at route plans around buildings and one way systems. Hand washing, surface cleaning, removal of hard to clean objects in classrooms. Rotas for playtime, lunchtime, arrival and dismissal. Where I work out who is well enough to work, or at the least, the lowest risk and available for the rota! Human resources, Health and Saftety, curriculum planning…
In a short amount of time I will be expected to finalise a plan with staff and share with parents a ‘roadmap’ that shows they will all be safe in my care…. How can I say that when the leader of the country, with all his resources, has watched while approximately 32,000 people have died, sharing the slogan “Stay Home” while forcing me and others out into the oncoming path of the disease, without a blink of an eye. Where colleagues are thought of as expendable and not worthy of thorough research or investment. Where is our PPE research? Our equipment: gloves, throw away facemasks, thermometers, whatever is needed to help staff to feel protected and valued. Where is the risk reducing equipment for children? (hand washing stations, hand santitiser, etc).
I have to take in 80% of my school on a phased return in three weeks (Nursery, Reception, Year 1, key workers children and the vulnerable families) and plan to take in the final 20% three weeks after that (we are a large three form entry infants school, with a full time Nursery).
While I battle with PPE resourcing, plans to help with emotional concerns, social issues and mental health worries (and that is just for the adults!), increased cleaning, recruit into empty posts and maternity covers and plan a recovery curriculum that talks about how to deal with loss and life post-pandemic for children and staff. I wonder what life will look like in the “New Normal”? Maybe I should ask, in this new normal life, post-pandemic, for a more precise job description!
I don’t know what the coming days will bring, but the one thing I know for sure is, I am the only one (along with headteachers across the country) who will find the path through it for our children, staff and parents. So, like every headteacher across the country I will deal with it, because that’s what Headteachers do. When the chips are down, we get on with it, when politicians talk, we are already doing, when the powers that be meet, we are already on our way, when the newspapers procrastinate we shut up and put out (along with wearing our superhero capes under our clothes) we get the job done to the best of our abilities, out here on the frontlines! “It is alright, because I now have the plan”, a headteacher cries…
This statement from the DfE (Department For Education) – guidance for parents…
“We have provided advice to schools and other settings on the steps they should consider taking, this includes:limiting the amount of contact between different groups of children (such as smaller class sizes with children and staff spread out more)additional protective measures, such as increased cleaning and encouraging good hand and respiratory hygiene.”
That is that sorted then! If only it was that simple.
Apparently not every superhero wears a cape or their pants on the outside of their trousers, but all I know is every headteacher, teacher, member of support staff (TA’s, pastoral leads, HLTA’s Nursery Nurses), Business Manager, office staff, caretaker, cleaner, cook, mid-day and Kitchen assistant working in schools across the land, they all Rock! Even without a super power!
So what we are doing is re-setting our schools, re-organising our spaces, we are planning and plotting and making sure our staff and children are as safe as can be. We are redesigning our curriculum for recovery, we are using trauma based approaches to offer guidance and support and using informed practice to invent our very own ‘New Normal’.
There is hope with hesitation, as this virus knows no boundaries. I can not promise to keep children safe from a risk I can not control (it is not a fire I can put out, or a catastrophe I can plan to avert) but in reality, I do my best to keep the people I serve as safe as I possibly can and I hope and pray we all can meet again soon.”
12th May 2020- Government announces that the housing market can begin again and people are now allowed to move home. Garden Centres and other businesses started to open. Most Construction sites have reopened but are all very different environments to what they were before. Social distancing rules apply.
13th May 2020- McDonalds reopens for deliveries only in some parts of the country. Fish Ponds open
14th May 2020- A new test that can determine whether you have had Coronavirus has been approved by Public Health but we don’t know when this will become available.
18th May 2020- Government announces that from 3pm today everybody who is displaying symptoms can get tested.
19th May 2020 Captain Tom Moore is to be knighted for his fundraising efforts after a special nomination from the Prime Minister. The war veteran raised more than £32m for NHS charities by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday in April. Boris Johnson said the centenarian had provided the country with “a beacon of light through the fog of coronavirus.” As an honorary colonel, his official title will be Captain Sir Thomas Moore under Ministry of Defence protocol.
22nd May 2020 – The government announced that from the 8th June anyone entering the UK from abroad must isolate for 14 days.
24th May 2020- The PM confirmed on Sunday that his plans for schools to open for reception, year one and year six will go ahead as planned on June 1st. This has been met with much speculation with many parents saying they will not be sending their children back to school.
25th May 2020- Dominic Cummings faces the media over his alleged breaking of the lockdown rules when he drove his family to Durham whilst he had Coronavirus and then later when he drove to Barnard Castle with his family. Mr Cummings insists he acted reasonably. Boris Johnson has stood by his chief advisor and Cummings will not be resigning. Some are worried that this will make others not want to stick to the rules.
26th may 2020- The Government announces their plans to reopen the retail Industry. Open air markets and car showrooms will open from June 1st 2020 with all other non-essential businesses opening from the 15th June 2020.
27th May 2020- There have been 5,618,829 cases of Coronavirus worldwide and 351,146 deaths.
28th may 2020- the NHS new track and trace system is launched in the UK. It means that if you have symptoms of covid-19 and test positive, you will be asked who you have been in contact with. These people will be contacted via telephone and asked to self-isolate for 14 days.
Boris Johnson’s addresses the nation. The 5 tests have been met which means restrictions can be eased further. The R is between 1.7 and 1.9. Plans to send children to school and the opening of open air markets on June 1st still stands. From Monday, family and friends can now meet in groups of 6 in private gardens but social distancing must be adhered too.
Dentists can open from 8th June.
30th May 2020 – Space X launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the first launch in 9 years. It will dock with the International space station to carry out essential works. It is expected that the astronauts will be there about 4 months.
The Government announce you can participate in group exercise outside with up to 5 people from different households as long as they are 2 meters apart.
31st May 2020- A further 113 people have died in the UK taking the death toll to 38,489.
The Government announces that people who are shielding can begin to go outside and see loved ones but they will be advised to be vigilant and do only what they feel comfortable with. Space X capsules docks with The International Space Station
July is the month of transition, but in these new times we have really had to think carefully about how this happens. Teachers have had to find a new way of communicating, not only with each other as children move through school, but with feeder schools for children coming in and out of our school, as well as with new parents and children. We have used our website, Facebook, letters, Zooms, phone calls and face to face meetings through the fence to ensure everyone transitions well, it has not been easy!
7th July 2020 – Our Better Bear Project was shared with all schools in Derbyshire…
