I bought a daily planner today. I’m a big fan of doing everything electronically but since I’ve returned to work in September I’ve struggled to get more strategic activities completed at work.

As a Headteacher of a primary school work has been a rollercoaster since September (actually since the start of March). The constant fear that we will have cases of COVID-19 in school took up every minute of my day in early September. Each time the phone rang I wondered if this was going to be the ‘call’ that meant children needed sending home immediately. Luckily - and it is luck - this hasn’t happened yet despite a few close calls when parents have tested positive.

I’ve spent the last half-term being hyper-vigilant (which is so tiring) and this has meant I’ve struggled to focus on anything other than the operational side of school.

One example of the difference in my role is bringing the children in and letting them out at the end of day. This has turned from a two minute job for the whole day (pre COVID) to 30minutes in the morning and 30minutes in the afternoon. This is to ensure that parents and children enter the playground at the correct time to enabling a staggered start and greater social distancing between children and parents.

I’m hoping that planning out my days more as well as physically writing it down will give me more structure that I need next half term to strategise.