Walt Disney famously said, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible” and during the lockdown of Spring/ Summer 2020, I found myself living out this principle.
When most schools were open to a limited number of children, here at The Prince of Wales School in Dorchester, Dorset, we opened up for every pupil wishing to attend. It never crossed our minds not to do this and we had to fight to make it happen.
The health, safety and wellbeing of our pupils and staff was always paramount but our view was that if it was safe for one group of 15 children to be together why not another group of 15 with the same strict measures in place?
Our situation was complicated by the Government’s bizarre decision not to take account of the three-tier education system in place in Dorchester.
This meant that initially our Year 4 leavers were not allowed to return back to school when Year 6 children in a middle school up the road were able to despite not having any transition to prepare for.
The measures described below were put in place following a change in Government policy that came at the start of June 2020 when the then Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson stated, ‘Schools that have the capacity and the desire to bring back more pupils, can do so…”.
We always had the desire, the capacity took a lot of creative thinking, many phone calls and a tenacity to go against the grain.
Throughout this period, we adopted a ‘YOUR CHILD, YOUR CHOICE’ ethos. This meant that we continued to fully support children and families who chose to stay at home.
We did this with a full Virtual School Programme and associated support activities including weekly phone calls, food parcels, physical resource deliveries, loan of school equipment (including desks, chairs and Chromebooks) and virtual ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support) sessions (as required).
Challenging
Now, I fully appreciate every school’s circumstances are different and that each and every school leader would have done their best through the most challenging of circumstances.
In sharing our approach though, I hope to inspire others and maybe provide some further food for thought should another lockdown scenario occur either at a local or national level.
To welcome all pupils back, we had to think outside the box to build capacity. We quickly converted our school hall, library and staff room to make additional classroom spaces.
We borrowed exam tables from our local secondary school and used household TVs as additional teacher displays.
This was all well and good but it wasn’t enough room to accommodate everyone.
We looked outside and considered various options, mobile classrooms were too costly and in high demand at the time. Other options available to purchase were either too expensive or did not offer the protection from the elements required.
We contacted a number of local marquee companies, all of which had furloughed their staff and therefore did not have the capacity to support us.
After much determination and many many phone calls we eventually found a marquee company in Oxfordshire that would not only work for us, but with us to deliver the best possible solution to our challenge.
We made plans over the phone and via video conferencing and thought carefully about all the details involved.
We wanted all temporary spaces to adopt our school’s ethos of being a place where ‘we are all inspired to learn’, and therefore named our marquee learning space accordingly the #InspiredToLearnNightingale Kingdom.
Adhering to social distancing guidelines, the marquee was kitted out with individual desks and chairs.
Following the Gratnells Learning Rooms ‘1-2-3 Recipe for Return’, the children each had two Gratnells trays to hold their learning resources and personal belongings, keeping them separated from others and avoiding the need for communal cloakrooms.
Setting out the marquee in this way encouraged social distancing within the students, but allowed them to come back together in a social environment.
Cleaning and reducing the risk of spreading of germs within the classroom was a big consideration for schools and parents/carers as they prepared to send their children back to school.
With this in mind, we kitted out the classroom using a range of Gratnells products from the new ‘Classroom Health and Hygiene’ collection.
The antimicrobial coating added to the trays and trolleys combats surface contamination from a wide range of bacteria and viruses and offers an additional layer of protection between cleans.
The marquee was loved by pupils and staff alike. It helped us ensure a 90 per cent attendance rate across the school in the final four weeks of term. It taught us that anything is possible and that sometimes… it’s kind of fun to do the impossible!
Gary Spracklen is Headteacher at The Prince of Wales School: Dorchester, Former Digital Educator of the Year and a member of UK Government’s – Department for Education ‘ETAG’ (Educational Technology Action Group).
