Across Wales right now teachers should be settling back into the new summer term after the Easter break, ready to introduce new schemes of work or put into practice some new professional learning.
In reality this is the sixth week that schools have been in lockdown. Headteachers and teachers have been working in repurposed hubs, setting home learning for their pupils, supporting the emotional wellbeing of their colleagues, pupils and parents as well as home schooling their own children all while dealing with the most significant global crisis for a century.
On the whole the Welsh Government and the education minister Kirsty Williams have been supportive, acknowledging the challenges of teaching remotely and offering practical support and resources through the national Hwb portal.
Last week the Government released its continuity of learning policy statement – Stay Safe. Stay Learning – setting out new guidance to support learners, leaders, governors, practitioners, parents and carers in dealing with the impact of coronavirus.
But while the support has been there, some of the messages have been mixed. When school closures were first announced in March Kirsty Williams said it would not be “business as usual”, adding: “We do not expect teachers to prepare lesson plans and a new curriculum for students in schools or at home.”
However, more recently she said plans to introduce the new Curriculum for Wales in 2022 had not changed, with the government “committed to maintaining momentum behind our curriculum reform”. Schools will soon receive advice on how to do that “even in these difficult times”, she added.
The minister was recently asked again whether she envisaged a slippage in the education reform timeline. Her response was: “I do not see the need to make any adjustments to the introduction of the curriculum reform.”
How can it be deemed reasonable to expect leaders, teachers and schools to carry on ‘co-constructing’ their curriculum during lockdown, to exactly the same timeline as before?
The Welsh Government has shown its understanding of the pressures facing headteachers, teachers and teaching assistants working on the front line with its words, but it must now match that with its actions.
Teachers have responsibility for the wellbeing and education of the children of our nation, and the pressure they are under at this time of national crisis cannot be underestimated.
We recently spoke to a headteacher in Wales who told us her staff of just 24 were coping with four bereavements, and two members of staff themselves have significant health issues.
Another headteacher who is currently running a hub school in West Wales called us, angry and upset that her already incredibly stretched leadership team might be distracted from the essential job of ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the 70 children directly in her care, but also the children from her school now experiencing lockdown.
This is not the right moment to expect those colleagues to be researching new ways of working and redesigning their curriculum, to the same demanding timetable as before.
While it is important to plan for an eventual return to school, this is not the time to reimagine our future. This is the time to focus all our efforts on the yawning gap that is widening for our most disadvantaged children and their families. Teachers can’t be expected to do everything. Right now they need vision and leadership to help guide them through this crisis. Reform can wait.
Finola Wilson is a former teacher and the director of Impact School Improvement, a Wales-based educational company that works with schools and teachers across the UK.
