This week has seen Thank A Teacher Day take place on Wednesday. I have been moved by the gratitude I have seen from our students, families and the wider Academy community. One group of students made a video message for staff; the gospel choir shared a video of a song recorded in lockdown. After I shared them in my daily bulletin for staff, my inbox was flooded (!) with colleagues moved to tears.

This is the difference gratitude can make. Because it’s been a tough time for teachers recently. Certain sections of the news media – and commentators on social media – have taken aim at the education profession over the past couple of weeks. This is demoralising – it has an impact. Because, let’s not forget what extraordinary things schools have done in this crisis.

Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education, announcing school closures on 18th March

The Secretary of State for Education announced on Wednesday 18th March that schools would close on Friday 20th. Churchill staff managed to organise a last day for Year 13 on the Thursday and Year 11 on the Friday, opened a new provision for vulnerable children and the children of key frontline workers which opened on the morning of Friday 20th, and mobilised an entire timetable of remote learning which went online on Monday 23rd and has been maintained ever since. The Academy has never closed: Frontline has remained open throughout half term and Easter, including bank holidays, fully staffed by colleagues coming in day after day to work with children who need them. We have organised the delivery of free school meals and food parcels. Every day, staff are setting, monitoring, marking, and helping with remote learning tasks for every lesson on the timetable. They are ringing families to check that students are okay. All this whilst balancing the needs of home-schooling their own children, managing their own health and wellbeing, and coping with the anxieties that we all feel in this time of unprecedented national and international crisis.

And now, we are planning together how to implement the government’s request for wider re-opening to selected year groups safely and meaningfully. There are pages and pages of guidance to read, digest, and implement – and even as I write, a week and a half after the announcement, there is still more guidance pouring out of the Department for Education, some of which means that we have to unpick the planning we’d already put in place to accommodate the new lines. Staff want to go back to school – we’re all desperate to see the students again! But we do not want our Academy to become an unintended vector for the coronavirus. We have to make sure that our students are as safe as it is possible to be in these difficult and dangerous times. And, as an employer, we have to ensure that the workplace is safe for our staff. We will not open for more students until we can be sure we have taken every possible precaution.

The Academy’s reception: closed until further notice

So, it’s been a difficult time for everyone, and school staff are no exception to that. What Thank A Teacher Day taught me on Wednesday was the importance of gratitude – and the difference it can make.

Because I am so incredibly grateful.

I am grateful for the fact that I am in a job where I can make a real difference to other people in this time of crisis.

I am grateful for the incredible team around me: the leadership teams who have stepped up to solve insoluble problems, to mobilise teams, to share the load; the administration and support staff who have ensured that the wheels of the Academy have kept turning efficiently and effectively; the site team who have maintained our buildings and grounds, and adapted them for social distancing and new COVID-safe guidelines; the IT network team who have kept our servers running smoothly as they have supported the remote access of nearly 1,500 users simultaneously; the support staff who have cared for our most vulnerable students; and of course the teachers who have, countless times and in countless ways, made a positive difference to our students.

I am grateful to the Academy’s governing body, who have put their full weight behind the staff; monitoring, evaluating, and strengthening  the crisis management response we have mustered.

I am grateful to the parents and families in our community, whose support has been overwhelming. Emails come in almost every day – not just for Thank A Teacher Day – recognising the work that has been done. And, in turn, we recognise the investment of time and effort that parents and families have put in to supporting the remote learning process, whilst going through the turmoil of financial and personal hardship that this crisis has brought with it.

I am grateful, most of all, for our students. Their response to this situation has been humbling. They have been appreciative of the Academy’s support; they have done their best to keep on top of remote learning; they have supported one another in video chats and WhatsApp groups (or whatever platform it is that young people use nowadays…); they have helped out in their communities; they have taken on challenges and developed their skills and abilities. And they have coped with simply unimaginable situations with a resilience and determination which gives me the highest of hopes for our recovery, and a better future.

Times are hard for everyone at the moment. But, if you look, we have much to be grateful for. So thank you. Thank you all.