Why schools must open in September
We all remember Monday, 23 March. All schools in England were closed, apart from for a very small number of children. School staff put plans in place over the course of a weekend, to try to continue to provide education for their pupils; for how long, nobody knew. As my state secondary school, where I am headteacher, we looked at how we could move to remote teaching to provide the best education possible. Initially, we prioritised those children doing GCSE or A level coursework and then we moved to a model where all pupils received live lessons, homework, feedback and 1:1 support where possible. We experienced many setbacks. We had to learn Microsoft Teams in a one-hour training session on the Friday before lockdown. Then we had to show pupils how to use it from home.
