THE Wren School principal John Salberg talks all about students settling back into schooling post-lockdown. He writes:

Six months on and there is a quiet buzz permeating through the buildings. Classrooms are starting to hum. The daily chatter and excitement can be heard drifting through the corridors. School is back.

But it doesn’t quite feel the same. There is a lingering nervousness. The steady flow of muffled voices from behind the masks remind us that school, today, is very different. We have challenges ahead but we will make this work. We are so pleased to be back. We have missed you all.

Starting a new job in a school, in the midst of a pandemic, certainly brings its own challenges but I am so proud to have arrived at The Wren School and to start my journey as Principal.

Our three values, to nurture, challenge and inspire, form the core of our vision and will be central going forward. Having worked and challenged myself in a range of educational experiences, from spending time overseas to working in alternative curriculum settings, we will create a school that inspires its students to think big and have the very highest expectations of themselves.

We have worked hard to ensure we open with as little change to our systems and processes as possible. Our young people have had enough change in the last six months; they deserve a taste of normality. Yet the offer is far from normal. We currently have mini schools working within a school. Students are directed to their own zones from the moment they arrive, and through an elaborate one-way system, they move together as a bubble only seeing fellow students from a social distance.

Teachers are all expert time keepers and planners as they move between classrooms and bubbles at speed, balancing equipment, resources, and sanitising as they go. However, once they are back in the classroom normality has begun to resume. Yes, the desks are all now in rows and the students are spread throughout the room but the joy of learning has returned. We might be teaching from afar - we miss those quiet conversations, the special little words of encouragement - but there is nowhere we would rather be.

Teaching from the front, we now see the faces of each of our students, maskless, a mixture of joy, intrigue and concentration. We are back.

This is our new normal. A limited offer, with no afterschool clubs, no fixtures, no choirs. But, we have had such a positive start over the first two weeks, our students have arrived focused and keen to get going. My staff are inspirational.

We hope we can soon get back to our fully rich and dynamic curriculum, and I can’t wait to see what we can all achieve next.