Guardian: ‘I do not see a single student wash their hands': teacher’s diary of the first week back at school

My 12 year old is back on the tube school. We have to trust that she will be sensible and do the right thing. Her school have very detailed instructions and have created year bubbles. They spend the last 5mins of each lesson cleaning their desks etc.

As pupils return to school after lockdown ‘the vigilance we were all told to employ seems to have gone awol’.Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty

Children packed in like sardines, few face masks ... an English secondary teacher records pupils’ return.

Tuesday: we don’t talk about the virus

I wake at 4am, two hours before my alarm is due to go off, with sneezing fits and stomach cramps – cramps are one of my symptoms of anxiety. 

Today is an inset day, typically an opportunity to get all the teachers together. This year, because of Covid, we are spread out around the building in small, socially distanced groups. Even instructions to discuss are now “with a socially distanced colleague”. However, I have strong doubts about whether the social distancing is going to work. On a holiday trip to Longleat, I learned that 2 metres is the same length as a fully grown zebra. Looking around, there doesn’t appear to be a zebra between us anywhere. Where’s a tape measure (or a zebra) when you need one?

There is a noticeable absence of face coverings. We’ve been told staff and students can wear them if they want to. It means we have to buy our own masks. I choose to wear one but feel self-conscious as I’m one of the only ones to do so, so it ends up scrunched in a plastic bag in my trouser pocket.

Some multi-academy trusts are providing all students with branded, colour-coded masks and staff with visors and masks. In my school, while we may not reach that gold PPE standard, we are certainly not the worst. I have heard horror stories of teachers coming back from shielding only to be publicly shamed by their heads for wearing a mask.

I had expected the inset day to be dominated by talk of Covid, but it remains the elephant in the room. Questions seem to hang in the air unanswered, like a bad smell. The truth is, we just won’t know what things will be like until the students are back tomorrow. And if today is anything to go by, it will seem as if Covid had never happened.

Wednesday: first students back. A shocking lack of social distancing

Today, I wake up to the sound of a text on my phone. It is the results of the Covid-19 test I had taken on bank holiday Monday. It is negative, which gives me momentary relief from the anxiety knotted in my stomach. At least I won’t be the next “super-spreader”.

Today school is open only for the new starters. Staff stand around waiting to funnel the arrivals through reception and into the hall, with no temperature checks. It isn’t long before they are packed in like sardines, ready to hear the headteacher’s welcome address. In my head, I start a game of “Spot the face mask” but give up because there are so few.

With all the conflicting messages and government U-turns, it has often felt like playing a board game in which the rules are made up on the spot. The fact that the students are in year “bubbles” offers me little comfort. While the bubbles at a primary school could be up to 60 students, secondary bubbles can be five times as many. Increasingly, I worry that this particular bubble is about to burst.

Throughout the day, unmasked adults lead groups of unmasked children around the school grounds without socially distancing from them at all. The scenes shock me in the same way as when I look back at archive footage of music concerts.

Thursday: my own children go back to school and vigilance goes awol

My alarm clock wakes me at 6am. We all rise as one, as each of us is back at school or work today, for what feels like the first time in forever.

Like many working parents across the country, I owe a mountain of gratitude to all the staff running school breakfast clubs. Both my children are going today. The staff there are rightfully vigilant about children sanitising their hands as they come in. My youngest is caught off guard. “Hand sanitiser, please!”. He has his water bottle in one hand and his packed lunch in the other, his face contorting as he puzzles through his dilemma. His bottom lip wobbles, then he sticks his water bottle under his armpit, threads his other hand through the handle of his lunchbox, and sanitises like it’s going out of fashion.

This makes me think about my own school. It is easy to bemoan the absence of adequate PPE, but are the schools that enforce strict safety rules in danger of scaring the life out of young people? All schools are walking a tightrope between keeping everyone safe and everyone sane. I don’t understand why we can’t achieve both.

I hear one parent, wearing a mask, ask a teacher about the rules and I’m frightened by the response. “I doubt whether many people will be wearing them tomorrow and the ones that do will probably feel a bit silly.”

We are supposed to be modelling how to be good citizens in a time of Covid, but I do not see a single student wiping down their desk or washing their hands in the numerous outdoor wash basins that have been installed. The vigilance we were all told to employ seems to have gone awol. And in the absence of vigilance, it won’t be long before the Covidiots have moved into town to hold an illegal rave on our sports field.

When I get home, one of my parent WhatsApp groups has almost 100 messages on it, with parents desperately wanting to chat about how the first day went. Most of the posts are about what the children ate (or didn’t eat) in the absence of cooked meals. Malt loaf bars appear to be the healthy snack food of choice.

Friday: ‘People died. It was sad. It is what it is’

Today is the last day of the first week back, and the day when all our students return to school, or face being fined for unauthorised absence. This strikes me as particularly harsh for any student with a family member undergoing chemo or those living with elderly relatives. As someone who suffers from bouts of anxiety, I’m not convinced that the threat of a hefty fine would be that effective while I’m in the throes of a panic attack.

But the threat seems to have worked. The trickle of students over the last couple of days has turned into a torrent arriving eagerly at the school gates. I feel nervous as the sound of the students approaching the building builds to a crescendo: not nervous for me, but for the many friends and colleagues who have come out of shielding to be guinea pigs in the next part of this social experiment.

A few more teachers are wearing masks but the students mostly seem blasé. One year 11 student seems more eager to show me a video of himself “stacking it” on his bicycle than to talk about Covid. We haven’t even seen the back of it but young people seem bored with coronavirus. It has become the Brexit of 2020.

I broach the subject with one of my classes. One student tells me she hasn’t been able to complete an assignment because she has been working in a hospital over the summer. “What was that like?” I ask her.

“Yeah. You know. People died. It was sad. It is what it is.”

Some identifying details have been changed.

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‘I do not see a single student wash their hands': teacher’s diary of the first week back at school