- Myton School

Dear Myton School stakeholders

We have come to the end of what will be the most memorable of terms. In the context of a truly worldwide event, our small corner of it around Warwick and Leamington has had to adapt and learn as we go. In doing so, we must never forget that staff, students and stakeholders have lost loved ones to this virus; our thoughts and best wishes are with you all.

As with any event of this magnitude, we can look back and consider what worked, what didn’t, what we’ll keep, what we enjoyed and what challenged us.

The challenges began for me on the evening of Friday 20 March; the day we all closed our schools. My 9-year-old son called his mum and I into his room and, with the aid of a small whiteboard presentation, announced that he was introducing a swear jar to the house to last through lockdown. In hindsight, I can only assume that this was part of a long-term strategy to raise funds, as his performance in home tuition sessions is directly responsible for over £50 being put in that jar over the last few months. I can honestly say I would rather take on 1,750 of your kids than my one child. The phrase ‘I know’ testily blared back at us as we dare try to help him with some work is like nails down a board. Thank God for key worker schemes! He was straight into that when the opportunity arose.

It’s been tough on parents nationwide to keep our kids engaged at home. If you’ve written in to share your experiences of home tuition and show the beautiful work your children have produced, thank you, you have my admiration and respect.

I’d also like to thank all Myton staff. I have written before that I don’t recognise the very public row between teachers and Government on how to ease lockdown. The experience at Myton has been every member of staff responding positively to everything we have asked of them; not just in terms of on-site and off-site learning, but also taking part in risk assessments, feeding back ideas on plans we publish, sharing ideas and resources (we had never heard of Loom prior to this shutdown and then the Head of English shared it school wide and now we are all using it). In the background, most of our curriculum has been completely rewritten which will improve learning for every child for years, and we have reorganised the Leadership Team to add more capacity to behaviour and welfare.

Our support staff have been fantastic. The site team have always been here, as have our reception, admin and finance teams. Between them, they have kept the school open every day since lockdown started. Our team of teaching assistants and SEND leadership have been in every day too, responding to the increasing numbers of students we have brought into school over the past few months. These teams have stepped up to make sure the school has functioned every day and I would like to thank all of them.

Of all the unintended consequences of lockdown, the one I will miss the most is time. There has been a lot going on but each day we have had time to spend with the students on site. Because the site has been so empty, we have been able to spend more time with these key worker children and some of our more vulnerable students. Things won’t always go right but when they don’t, having the time to work with the child and go through how things may be different without the clutter of a full school has been something we have all enjoyed and seen the impact of. I have written before of the benefits to students with SEND of this style of learning and the environment we have been able to create. It is something we will strive to recreate next term, even within a full school. For now though, I would like to thank all the students who have taken part in what they call ‘Corona School’. Many have been in every day and we have found them to be great company. Our staff here have looked forward to being on the rota to spend time with them (rather than our own kids in some cases).

Throughout this epidemic, before lockdown and through it, many of you have taken the time to write in and thank us for how we are reacting to events. The number of messages we have received has been stunning and we read every single one of them, even if we don’t always reply. They get passed around the school, and the feeling of community, that we are all working together against this set of circumstances, has never been greater. I would like to thank each and every parent who has taken the time to send in a message, we are grateful and humbled by what you have said.

The cycle of the past few months has been like this. We settle into a new routine. Within a few days, there are rumblings in the press about what is coming up. Not wanting to be caught on the back foot, we start building plans to meet the scenario we think is coming. Then the Prime Minister or Secretary of State announces the new plans, promising guidance in a few days. Two or so weeks later, after an almighty row with the unions, the guidance comes out which looks nothing like what the Secretary of State or PM have announced. Then the guidance changes every day and we get emailed the new version, helpfully with no indication of what has changed. This has led to more plans and timetables being created than I can count. Every single one of them has come from my brilliant Leadership Team, who have just got on with whatever we have been told. They have had to put up with all of this public indecision but also they have had to put up with me getting grumpy about it, which can’t be easy. I would like to thank them all for their work – and their patience – over the last few months. And on a personal note, thanks to Deputy Head, Mr Jones, who took the school from me for the first 4 weeks of lockdown when this horrible virus hit my home, and to the Chair of Governors, Diane Burley, whose front line NHS experience and knowledge of Covid kept me sane when it put my partner in hospital.

We are now pretty much ready to start next term, subject to any further government announcements scheduled for 11 August. I am looking forward to it. We will open with around 1,750 students; our largest ever intake, and it will be busy and a little odd to begin with. But we will all tackle this with a new level of resilience and pragmatism; it’s just got to be done. Like all aspects of this period, there will be parts that really work well and others that need tweaking, but it is all doable. I am particularly interested in how the staggered breaks work. This should make eating a better experience and hopefully suit more of our students. Of course, what we must do is avoid any further local lockdowns, something which is partly in our control. We will be doing our bit provided we: