Our wee-one (5) has been a superstar over the last few weeks. She has shown great motivation to participate in anything we've put in front of her. We have seen progress in her ability to choose her own independent activities. Her independent abilities have already blossomed. 1/15 https://twitter.com/secretHT1/status/1247445602830635008

We feel that her overall personal progress over the recent period has rocketed. This injection of non-academic learning has suited her very well, and we have upped our game in response. Her ability in Gaelic has also moved forward considerably. 2/15

We have learned many new things about her. Learning for her has to have a context & a practical application; physical exercise is best done on a hill, numeracy is best done through baking & the discussions we've had on our many mini-hikes have shown her literacy strengths. 3/15

Video calls, through a variety of platforms, have allowed her to keep in touch with her family and pals, but it's here that we started to wonder. One of her most significant areas of progress on going to nursery was her ability to interact with others and form relationships. 4/15

Her friends and family are everything to her, but her route to having friendships was not an easy one. Notwithstanding the fact that VC is horrible for everyone as a way to interact, we are seeing signs of introvercy, some shyness and lack of perceptiveness in interaction. 5/15

The video calls seem to knock her immediately afterwards: clinginess, melancholy and some teariness. There's also some evidence that she is being influenced by others' tastes and views to an extent we haven't previously seen. 6/15

We've had two or three nights' of nightmares, sleepily explained by her as being about "the bugs". She's taking more and more coaxing and reassurance to go outside (never refuses), and, on the odd occasion, she's gone from placid to full-blown anger for no reason in a flash. 7/15

The point of this thread is to put out there that our part in children's transition back to normality will be the biggest challenge we ever face. A minority will waltz back in on the first day back as if nothing had happened. 8/15

However, the majority will present us with challenges across a broad, indistinct spectrum. We've no idea as to how (or when) movement restrictions will be relaxed, but I hope, personally, that it is not too soon. Our first role will not to be educators in an academic sense. 9/15

When children arrive again at our school gates we should be facilitators of fun, engineers of interaction, modellers of manners, careful shepherds of personal organisation and, most importantly, the most normal, familiar faces a child has ever seen. 10/15

We will celebrate parents and children for the huge efforts and sacrifices they have made. Rightly so: they will be the true stars of this unprecedented period. We will realise that that paragraph in our job descriptions about "any other reasonable duties" has real meaning. 11/15

Our children will be different, physically and emotionally. We will become counsellors and deal with PTSD. We will find that relationships with some pupils have been reset positively, but with others we will be starting afresh as if we'd never met them. 12/15

Others still will be identical, at least on the outside. For some the return to normality will be manna from heaven, and some will take it in their stide; for others it will be the start of a long road. 13/15

When we eventually start our pre-assessments to inform our planning we should have no preconceived ideas. Similarly, we should be prepared to embrace the skills which children will have learned on the fly, and develop these as appropriate. 14/15

Our children will change over the next few months. We simply need to be prepared to be human and not expect to pick up where we left off. This is an ill-wind, but it's up to us to find the good in it. 15/15