A queue of 14-year-olds has formed outside my classroom. There is no teacher inside because I have forgotten I’m meant to be teaching Year 10 first period. Late and panicking, I hurry to greet my students but can’t remember their names and don’t recognise their changed faces behind their masks. With no lesson prepared I stand rooted to the front of the class — as the government has instructed all teachers to do — and start singing (badly) the songs from the musical Hamilton. At this point, the principal walks into my classroom and asks what the hell I think I’m doing.
At the beginning of every school term I have anxiety dreams about being unprepared for my classes but never have the dreams been as vivid or as bad as this time. Before the first day back I wake in a sweat at 3am and arrive at school to find my colleagues have been suffering similar night-time tortures. If returning to school after a gap of nearly six months is this stressful for us, what will it be like for the children?
The first day turns out to be a relative doddle, as it’s teachers only. I arrive at the red-brick building and let myself in with a pass I last used on March 20. It still works. Reception looks identical. Upstairs in the maths office there is my desk. There are my colleagues, and the principal — all are exactly as they were.