Pic of the week 28/6/20
And so the academic year 2019-20 is over.
And what a year it was. I really hope I don’t see its like again.
Perhaps I should have seen it as a sign of the surprises (not all (in fact most weren’t) good) that were to come when right at the outset Jo(e) Lyons announced that (s)he would now be a woman. This was a brave move, but one that I saluted then, and salute still. I was pleased to see how our community could adapt and accept in the modern would.
And the came the tsunami of “TPS”. At the start of the second week of term, the Head announced that the school was entering into a period of consultation, with the proposal to leave the TPS. I’d been Chair of the Common Room for a few weeks since the end of the previous year, I’d spent the summer thinking of positive ways I could enhance lives of Millfield teachers when suddenly – Boom – I found myself at the centre of a maelstrom that was to occupy my every thought and deed for the next term and half. It was difficult, it was fraught, it was fractious. But when I look back on the year, I do so with pride, I think I did a very difficult job well, and I think the outcome we achieved was a good one. I think that I am probably a little under halfway through my Millfield career, but I suspect that those six months, and those three letters – T.P.S – will define my time at the school.
And the came coronavirus.
As the Spring term began, I was conscious of reports from China of a new virus that had appeared, but China was a long way away and the reports were just a brief distraction from the gloom of impending Brexit. On our return from half-term, it was a lunchtime topic, with a couple of students who had been ski-ing in Italy over the break having to go home to be isolated – just in case. By the start of March it was it was beginning to become a concern – looking back at my blog post for 1st March I mention both coronavirus and TPS, but the latter was still the bigger issue. But then by mid-March it was becoming reality and on Friday March the 20th I taught my last pupils in my classroom – schools were shutting. On the Monday (23rd March) I went into school and taught my lessons remotely from there – which was my plan for the last week of term, but that evening we went into full lockdown, and I haven’t been back since.
Teaching remotely went well, and I am pleased with what I (and my colleagues) delivered. We stuck to our normal timetable and taught our normal lessons right up to the end of term two days ago. At first it was somewhat of a novelty and I enjoyed the experience, but by the start of the final half term of the summer term, the novelty had worn off and it was, to be honest, a bit of a drag. The actual teaching was fine, but it made you realise that the social contact of the job is so important. It was a relief to end the term on Friday, and I look forward to being back in the classroom in September.
And in this strangest of years it would be easy, but quite wrong, to overlook the sadness of the passing of two colleagues.
Emily Harmes passed away at home the night before the start of the second half of the Spring Term. Over the last year or so, I had come to know her better, and had spent about 10 minutes chatting with her on that Sunday, at parents evening. She was telling me excitedly about her new job (she was due to move to Bryanston as Head of Economics in September) and we laughed and joked about a few inconsequential things. And then the next afternoon I heard that she had died. It still saddens me that I was almost too busy to properly mark her passing, and that such a major and tragic event will only be a footnote in the history of this year.
And Ivan Bicknell finally succumbed to the cancer that was diagnosed shortly after he had arrived at the school. I didn’t know Ivan well, but whenever I chatted with him he always struck me as a really good bloke and his premature death is a great saddness.
So farewell 2019-20, I hope I don’t see your like again.
