What seems like a lifetime ago; but in reality was just a month ago on the 20^th March, I published a piece on this blog with the following first paragraph:

COVID-19 PM’s Suez?

How a Prime minister deals with a crisis sometimes seals their fate. Chamberlain did not survive the switch from phoney war to Blitzkrieg, and Eden paid for the shambles of Suez with his job. How our current Prime Minister handles the next few weeks will seal his fate.  I never thought I would be writing these lines, especially in a situation where the current government has such a large majority. But even a large majority cannot protect someone in Number 10 Downing Street if both the opposition and significant parts of his own Party want a change of leadership.

Since then our prime Minister has caught the virus; been in hospital and is now recovering. During the past month, schools have managed a rapid re-assessment of their role and the manner in which pupils can learn. This wasn’t the way anyone envisaged celebrating the 150^th anniversary of state schooling, but it has fundamentally challenged the traditional classroom-based method of learning.

However, it has also revealed that whatever method of instruction or learning is in operation,  some pupils won’t or cannot benefit from the basic structure that works for the majority. Some have special needs and some are disadvantaged socially; some have both challenges. How a Society deals with this issue is, for me, a mark of its inclusiveness. I would also add that the present situation in which we find ourselves gives the lie to those that thought there was no such thing as Society any more.

Strategic thinking is still in short supply. There are group of Year 13 students, now to be assessed on their work before the outbreak that could form a useful coordinated volunteer force organised by their Sixth Form Tutor and reporting to the local hubs.

Apart from the obvious use of their talents to produce PPE on the schools’ 3D printers; sowing machines and other D&T resources they could be reducing the traffic jam of delivery vehicles clogging up suburban streets by trialing last mile cycle delivery from transshipment points to see how this would work. If petrol pumps are a transfer risk for the virus, we could use some as pump attendants, at least for vulnerable customers so that they could avoid touching the pumps and know that only the person serving them had handled the filling mechanism.

I am sure that readers could think of other such tasks that might then be offered to unemployed workers as the school system re-opens, and these Year 13 students head for higher education in the autumn.

The talents of the population are not in doubt, but what is to me challenging is how effectively the government is managing the strategy. At least, here in Oxfordshire, the reports of the functioning of the school system under lockdown are good. But there may still be looming challenges around the future of some schools within the private school sector if the forthcoming economic winter is as harsh as we are being told that it might become.