Back to School

At The Mulberry House School in north west London, we have been open throughout the crisis to provide an education for our key worker children and also to provide resources for our pupils at home. We have even taken in the children of key workers who attend other local schools which did not stay open.

Nevertheless, we were counting the days until we could welcome back many more pupils and we have worked hard towards that goal for the last few weeks.

As soon we knew the first date we could open as a school, we surveyed our parents to ask them if they were happy to send their children back. Without their approval – and without that of our staff – we would not have gone ahead. The result was an overwhelming “yes” and so, on 1st June, we ended up welcoming back over two-thirds of our pupils.

Our only sadness has been that we have been unable to welcome back our year twos because government guidelines do not allow them to return. We have been very disappointed by this because they are our leaving year group and we believe that they should have time to prepare for the next stage of their education and have a proper farewell. We are busy planning how we can still do this for them even if it has to be remotely.

Meanwhile, before the big return to school, obvious steps like deep cleaning and the planning of new hygiene measures took place before the children returned.

We also worked hard as a Senior Leadership Team to carry out a detailed risk assessment on how we would keep our children as safe as possible.

As a pre-prep for two to seven-year olds, it is not as straightforward for us as simply expecting the children to adhere to rules. I also wanted to ensure that we did not frighten the children with our Covid-19 messaging. This is a fine line to tread. I firmly believe learning at this stage should be challenging but also be fun and exciting. Fun and play must remain at the heart of everything we do here. It would therefore be inappropriate for those teaching such young children to wear PPE and masks as this could frighten the children.

On a practical level, we have therefore done as much as possible to keep the children at a safe distance from the staff and from each other in the classroom. Class sizes have been halved and we decided to keep the children within each new class or “bubble” apart to decrease mixing. Pupils and staff do not mix outside their bubble. The children take their breaktimes and lunchtimes in their “bubbles” and these breaks are staggered throughout the day. Equipment that cannot be cleaned safely each day has been taken out of use for now.

As you can imagine, the social distancing message can be tricky for such young children. To reinforce the message, we regularly talk about why it is important and we have also introduced visual aids like tape on the classroom floors to show children what a two-metre distance looks like.

When children come to school in the morning, they are asked to sanitise their hands and their temperature is taken. To ensure that this did not seem intimidating, we decided to welcome our children back on the first day in a celebratory fashion. We created huge balloon arches in the school colours at the gates of our nursery and main school with “Welcome Back” banners. As children entered, we carried out the new hygiene measures and let them know they would need to do this every day. They were so excited to be back and to see their friends and teachers that they took this in their stride and continue to do so.

I believe that it has been the correct decision to bring back this age group to school because their early years development is so crucial. A key part of this development is linked to social interaction. This may need to be socially distanced interaction for now but the benefits of being back in the school setting and being back with their peers are manifold.

It has long been recognised by educationalists that the education laid down in the early years provides the platform for the rest of a child’s education. If we get it wrong in the early years and a child is disengaged by education, they may never engage again. This is why it is so important for them to be at school. I believe that any longer away from school could be very damaging for their development.

School should be safe, yes, but it should also be exciting, fun and full of challenges and opportunities. Let us not forget that!