Symphony Question: How can school start to feel normal again after lockdown?

“Only when normal things are not normal anymore, do we realise how special normal things are!”

-Anonymous

Our Symphony Question series is back!

The start of 2021 has been challenging. Most schools in the UK came back from the Christmas holidays for one day, and then we promptly closed as we went back into a national lockdown. Young people, and their teachers, were thrust back into home learning for eight plus weeks. While this was no longer anyone’s first home-learning rodeo, it did take a bit of adjustment to return to education being conducted almost fully behind a screen again. But, as we’ve learned this past year, young people and educators are truly resilient and took Lockdown 3.0 in stride.

Now with most schools being back in session, we’ve relaunched our Symphony Question series to start membership-wide conversations around current topics. As everyone is easing back into the classroom we have decided to ask questions that get students to reflect on their experiences in lockdown and help give them start conversations on how to shape their return to school best suited to their needs.

So for our first Symphony Question of 2021, we asked “How can school start to feel normal again after lockdown?” And the results were very clear.

Question: How can school start to feel normal again after lockdown?

National result:

Result:

By a clear margin pupils across the UK have said that in order to make school feel normal again, the focus should be on wellbeing. While there was some interest in shifting focus to the future, and increasing discussions about what is going on, it is abundantly clear that wellbeing is the priority for pupils.

What can we learn from these results?

Young people have been so disrupted this past year - and the one thing that is traditionally a fixture of normalcy in their lives had been missing over lockdown.

Not having school - from the structure, to the support, to the socialisation - had taken its toll. And in order to support students as they return to school - even if it doesn’t feel normal this year with all the restrictions in place the way to start making it feel normal is through a focus on student wellbeing.

While there’s plenty of different ways to focus on wellbeing in your school, don’t forget that you can use the Class Meeting Tool to support this. Having guided school-wide discussions on how students are feeling, and giving them direct say in what your school’s response is to the ‘new-normal’ is incredibly important - as Sam explains in this video.

We hope that moving through the rest of Spring Term, and even when school returns after the Easter Holidays, that we will continue to see a focus on student wellbeing and a continued dedication to giving all pupils a place to share and discuss their experiences this year.

What’s next?

After a more than three month break, our weekly Symphony Questions suggestions for Class Meetings have returned with a storm! We’ll continue sending out Symphony Questions each Friday - and a reminder on Monday - throughout the term.

Want to suggest a question? Send us an email at membership@smartschoolcouncils.org.uk