Headteacher's Blog #18

It is interesting that our politicians no longer talk about the impact that the Covid pandemic had on our society, it is as if it never existed. To an extent I understand this well, we shouldn't use an event that happened almost six years ago to excuse low expectations. Of all the crises I have dealt with in my career the pandemic lockdowns were the most significant. I was leading a school that already faced significant challenges and the idea that school would not be a physical part of the lives of young people for an extended period of time was devastatingly distressing. It is safe to say that the inquest into the decision to shut schools has not yet been written. When it has been, I feel that it will reveal that this period of time devalued the importance of schools to society, relegated them behind the need for commerce and breached that most important agreement that individuals have with the state, the social contract.

The pandemic largely removed school from the lives of young people for almost an academic year, it also largely removed social care as the information that schools picked up about young people couldn't be effectively shared. The institutions that are in place to keep young people safe were rendered impotent and the pressure was piled on parents to pick up the slack. The certainty of schooling to the lives of young people and families was removed and it is still taking time to recover. AT LSA the tail of the Covid lockdowns has been particularly long, compounded by a major building project and changes to leadership. The contract between the school and its community is not yet fully in place. 

The most obvious symptom of this is attendance, our attendance prior to the lockdowns was at the national average, now it is in the bottom 10% of similar schools. We are 2 years behind the recovery seen by most schools. Schools rely on certainty, stability and clear boundaries; on these pillars good attendance is built. This is especially true for our most vulnerable young people. Our work since September has been to reestablish these norms but we need your support. Although attendance has improved this year, every day 60 fewer students attend school than they did 6 years ago. The social contract which once bound parents and school together is mending, but we have a way to go. We need your support and, if our young people are to be resilient and successful in future life, they need to be at school. You can be assured that although we will not always get it right, we will be trying our best to make this school a place that we can all be proud to send our children to.