Living and working in the Caribbean during the Pandemic has been an education.

We closed down early here, schools shut in March and remained closed for the remainder of the school year. Life went into deep freeze with strictly enforced Suppression Measures controlling all movement, all meetings and many aspect of everyday life.

What followed school closure and the move to distance learning was an experiment in education and flipped learning. We all had to adapt quickly to the pivot to distance learning and to the technologies available to us. As a government school we faced an enormous technological barrier as many of our homes did not have computers or even tablets.

Teachers had to find ways to effectively teach using commonly available tools like Zoom and WhatsApp. To find ways to ensure that the learning to date was consolidated and that some new learning took place.

The aim being to reduce learning loss.

Perhaps the biggest challenge was maximising engagement and keeping attendance high. Here the importance of community and the relationship between home and school came to the fore and proved to be the decisive element in making distance learning work.

From day one our mantra was about developing a learning partnership with parents (read significant adult, older sibling). They were to be our partners in every sense. We altered our planning so it was accessible to the layperson, we held weekly meetings with our class parents to review the week gone and plan the next one. We had one to one coaching sessions for parents of students with additional needs so they could more effectively support them.

We trained our community. As a result we achieved good levels of regular engagement with 75%+ of our students.

Students’ work was submitted by email, text, voice note and by photo. Feedback was by every method barring smoke signal!

We even had a system wide inspection carried out by our local equivalent of OFSTED to review the quality of what we were doing. It included lessons observations. Just let that sink in.

Staff gave everything long days and seven day weeks. They developed whole new ways of working. Whole class teaching and small groups through Zoom and Teams, a hybrid of synchronous and asynchronous teaching using whatever technology we could make work and supplementing it with paper packs and activities kept learning going.

Of course there were challenges and families that were reluctant or unable to engage and these became the focus of the work of the SLT. Multiple calls and discussions to slowly reel them into the partnership.

The year ended, for my team, with June but we ran on for an extra week to wrap up the year.

We were exhausted but I can not tell you how proud I am to have been part of the extraordinary group of educators that made it happen.

No, I am not going to claim it was the same as or as effective as being at school but given the challenges, the obstacles we faced it was incredible and an achievement one of which we can all be justifiably proud.

Principals have had to work throughout the summer break. Yes we have had a bit more of a work life balance and been able to take three day weekends but we have been working the rest of the time. Certainly we have worked far more than any other summer I can remember and that includes the times when one or another of my schools had major construction work going on in the break. Over the summer we have been planning how we reopen. But we are all well and we live in our little island bubble, I guess that’s just the price we pay.

The island has been incredibly successful at controlling the spread of Covid. Most of the population has been tested and we have moved to minimal suppression. In point of fact we could probably open the island internally and keep our borders closed. Life could go on as usual. Sort of.

But the key to the islands success, so far, has been caution. The Government, who have done an incredible job, are not about to throw away the sacrifices made to date by rushing to open. So we are planning a staggered return to school in August with only half the students returning. The rest will continue with distance teaching for a further two weeks before returning.

There will be no whole school assemblies, no mixing between classes, staggered lunchtimes and playtime, masks, gallons of soap and hand sanitiser, social distancing. Lessons on social distancing and a focus on unpacking and dealing with the emotional impact of Covid, shelter in place, school closure and reopening and once settled baseline assessments so we can see where we are and what we need to do.

Today I am sat here putting the finishing touches to our opening plan and guidance for our community and I am trying to work out do we bubble by class or by year group? I think classes but if we do should we put our twins (8 pairs and a set of triplets across the school) into the same classes? After all, surely living in the same home but being in separate bubbles during the day makes no sense.

I think I will take an hour or two off and have a dive and think about this quandary while I blow a few bubbles.