 Our kids have missed a lot of school and the temptation is perhaps to jump straight back in and get them achieving as highly as possible, as quickly as possible so we can get them back on track, make up for lost time. In my humble opinion, this is entirely the wrong approach. We need to play the long game here. We need to create an environment where we can begin to build up broken children, broken families, broken staff and create an environment where, in the medium and the long term, everybody can thrive. Everybody is on a state of high alert, high anxiety right now. We are not primed for learning. We will be worrying more about how to prevent contagion, for example, than how to do algebra. And that makes perfect sense. We're living in the middle of a global pandemic. We need to think about our safety. And when we've got those kind of thoughts going around in our head, which will be reinforced by the rules that we will put in place in order to keep everybody safe and the constant reminders about those rules, which matters and is the most important thing right now. But that means we're all going to be on high alert. We're going to have that fight, flight, freeze, faint brain a lot of the time, and that just isn't really the right place for learning. Also, we will have forgotten a bit about how to learn, how to be in school, how to be around other people. There's all sorts of things that need rebuilding here before we're essentially ready to learn. And in just the same way that perhaps you had a bit of a routine back in the old days when things were normal, where you would try and settle your children, get them ready for learning after transitions like break time or lunch time. This is basically like the mother of all transitions and creating that readiness for learning is going to take more than a few minutes. It might take more than a few months, but it's something we need to be working towards. Remember that the damage that can be done by trauma and facing difficult challenges is absolutely possible to overcome, but it really does take time. And so nurture is an incredibly important thing here. You need to be creating an environment where children can thrive, where adults can thrive, where we can all begin to find our feet again and begin to feel a little bit safe. There is no way better than doing this than through play. And colleagues at Reading University have just recently done a rapid review of the evidence which points to the importance of play. And this being the most important thing that schools and families can do to protect and support our children as we ready for the return to school. So how can you create an environment of nurture and play? How can you ensure that above anything else our children feel cared for, looked after and are able to have some fun? Fun is perhaps something that's been a little bit light on the agenda recently while we've been really focused on keeping safe. And now instead of barreling straight into academic endeavor and achievement, perhaps we need to look first to how do we create an environment where children feel free to have fun? How can we laugh together? What can we do that means that we are able to loosen up a little bit? Begin to relax, begin to teach our brain it's safe here, it's okay and begin slowly to rebuild our readiness for learning. This is important not just for the children but for the adults around them too. How can we create an environment of nurture and fun and play between children and adults, between children and children, between the adults and all together? Think about your children, think about your staff, think about the families, nurture and fun really matter here. What do you currently do well, what's worked well in the past and what might you be able to do more of moving forward to create this environment? Please don't misunderstand me, I think the academic endeavor is really important and children thrive when they feel a sense of achievement. I talk about that in the parallel course of this which I'll edit and release as soon as possible. However, right now the most important thing isn't about making up for lost time academically, this is about laying the foundation so that our children are able to learn in the medium and the long term. So nurture them, love them, that's the most important thing rather than teaching in the traditional sense.