Our top tip can be encapsulated in two simple questions: “How are you?” and “How can we help?”. Nothing is more important right now than open communication and we always aim to make time to listen. We are dealing with a pandemic that has shaken homes, turned schools upside down and stolen aspects of childhood. Our children have faced pressures and challenges we never anticipated and while it would be easy to jump on transgressions and tantrums, it’s important we see their behaviours as symptoms. There has never been a more important time to show kindness to others and to ourselves. 

In returning to remote schooling, it has been second nature for us to prioritise personal communication and to support the whole family. We have linked every teacher to a tutor group and this gives us the opportunity for each family to spend time with a teacher each week – to celebrate the good things that have happened as well as to try and iron out any concerns.  Alongside their full curriculum of live teaching, pupils have daily slots to catch up with tutors and friends and we’ve organised social times that extend those links even further. Curriculum time is always valuable but nothing is more important than mental health.

And it’s not just children we are looking out for. Our emphasis on staff wellbeing has never been stronger and we are there to support parents too. In unpredictable times it helps to acknowledge that perfection is beyond us. We can forgive ourselves for all just doing the very best that we can. Behind our fears, our frantic afternoons and tiny steps forward, our children are more resilient than we realise and always learning. If we teach them to adapt, to communicate, to study in new and different ways and to understand better how to look after their own mental health, we will help them emerge better prepared to embrace their next challenge.

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