You’ll all know that last night the Prime Minister made a speech setting out what he described as:
- ‘the shape of a plan’
- ‘the first sketch of a road map’
- ‘a sense of the way ahead’
He used all of those phrases in just one small part of his speech and I’ve bulleted them here in order to emphasise that at the moment, schools don’t have any greater detail:
- we don’t know the shape of the plan
- the map is just a sketch and sketches can be easily rubbed out or worked over
- the way ahead is just a sense – and it may not yet be a common sense shared by all
Later in his speech, there’s similar content:
- ‘at the earliest by June 1’
- ‘we believe we may be in a position to begin…’
- ‘to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, year 1 and year 6.’
Again, I’ve bulleted these three points to highlight the uncertainties we – you as parents and carers, and we as teachers -face.
- ‘at the earliest’ does not guarantee the date
- ‘we believe’ and ‘we may be’ don’t guarantee anything
- ‘in stages’ raises so many questions, such as whether this is for all pupils, all at once, or just smaller groups of Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils.
There are so many questions (What if…?) that we can tag on to the points made last night.
A lot can change in just a short time at the moment: we’ve gone from front page headlines such as ‘Happy Monday!’ (The Sun) and ‘Hurrah! Lockdown freedom beckons’ (Daily Mail) to quite a different mood: ‘Ready, Steady, Slow’ and ‘Boris keeps handbrake on’ – headlines from the same two papers, respectively, and only five days apart.
We’ve 21 more days before 01 June.
This week, school leaders will examine closely the detail that we hope will be included in the document due to be published today. For the rest of the month, we’ll continue to review and reflect and plan for the best possible provision in these uncertain times. Please be assured that we’ll always act in the best interests of our pupils and our staff.
Moortown Primary and Scholes (Elmet) Primary remain open for children whose parents are key workers (including those who attend St James’) and for those who might be considered vulnerable in some way.