Scotland: mixed feelings about school return following coronavirus closures

Parents and children across Scotland have described a mixture of relief, anxiety, loss and celebration as pupils begin their phased return to schools across the country this week.

“I can be flippant about how it is great to get rid of them,” says Vonnie Sandlan, a mother of four on Glasgow’s south side, “but there was something special about us all being together during this terrible time. Now it feels like sending them off to nursery for the first day.”

Her 11-year-old daughter Greer admits that she is nervous about going back to her primary school on the south side of Glasgow on Wednesday but looks forward to playing football with her friends again. “With everyone in the same class, we’ll be sitting pretty near. Over the summer, I’ve only been visiting two friends in their gardens.”

Sandlan, the chair of her primary’s parent council, says that the prospect of returning to a busy school environment is inevitably unsettling her children. “It’s the complete reversal of the messages they’ve been hearing for the last five months. But I’ve been really reassured by the communications we’ve had from their schools, and I’m concentrating on the social and emotional side before the educational side.”

Parental concerns about lack of social contact in the absence of ready-made school communities have been profound, says Tina Woolnough, of Connect, an umbrella body for Scottish parent councils, especially among parents of primary age children. “There is still some anxiety about health and safety provisions, but in reality most parents are just relieved because school is where children learn and socialise.”

But Woolnough sounds a note of caution: “Everyone is concentrating on return but we also need to focus on the what-ifs too, and how to apply the experience of the last five months about home learning to local lockdowns.”

Johannah Bisset, Edinburgh-based coordinator of Us for Them, a parents’ group with around 9,000 members across Scotland that has campaigned for a full-time return to education, is appalled by the suggestion that further targeted lockdowns could include schools.

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“There is a celebratory feeling this week,” says Bissett, “for the efforts of parents who have pushed for full-time return and for children who have really struggled with lockdown. It’s outrageous that we’re discussing closure again when we’ve seen the harm that it does to children.

“While we’ve had plenty of people telling us that they had a wonderful time baking banana bread with their kids, there are thousands of others who have not had that experience. Children who may have been overlooked by social services during the pandemic now have the safe space of school open to them again.”

Jonathan Dorrat, 17, said he was looking froward to seeing his friends face-to-face rather than over Zoom, as he took his lunch break at Anderson high school in Lerwick, Shetland, one of two Scottish council areas which began the phased return to school on Tuesday.

“There was definitely a bit of anxiety coming back in after five months, but there’s also relief to get back into a routine and get on with my studies.” Dorrat, who hopes to study politics or international relations at university on the mainland, added: “Online learning disadvantages too many people, especially here with the poor internet access, and this means that education is a level playing field for everyone again.”