As we slowly emerge from lockdown and staff and students start to return to school, social media is awash with talk of recovery curricula, risk-assessed bubbles and debates about blended and hybrid learning. The way school terms work in the UK means that Scotland, where the new school year started last month, is likely to be the test bed for this return. Like elsewhere in the world, there is a clear sense that, once practical issues such as social distancing have been navigated, something must be done to mitigate lost learning. Teachers, schools and local authorities will have been planning for this, even though we are in uncharted territory. Clearly we’re living in truly unprecedented times. Or are we?

As educators, we are constantly being encouraged to use research and evidence-based practice, so what can we do when there is no modern precedent for this global pandemic? One approach might be to try and learn from broadly equivalent situations where schools have returned from unexpected closures. If we step back from Covid-19 and take a historical, global view, there are examples of schools coping with prolonged absence from formal schooling. Although we need to be careful drawing too much from past events, there might be valuable experiences we can consider.

The closest comparison to what we face now would be other disease emergencies. Clearly the way Covid-19 has impacted on a global level is unique, but the Sars epidemic, which started in Hong Kong in 2003, and more recently, in 2009, the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic are more suitable if looking for historical lessons learned. Unfortunately, research into how teachers coped and the return to schooling is limited. Research will certainly be carried out in the aftermath of Covid-19, but that doesn’t help teachers now.

Research on natural disasters may provide us with useful insights and allow us to evaluate the longer-term effects of school closures - something that isn’t yet possible to do with Covid-19. Schools often experience extended closures after a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005. The effects of some natural disasters may be felt for weeks, months or even years. Aftershocks continued for years after the 2010 Christchurch earthquake, and even when schools reopened, the disaster continued to impact on the day-to-day lives of students and teachers. This created psychological and emotional triggers, as teachers noted increased anxiety in students months and years after the first earthquake.

In the UK, similar findings were reported after the 2007 floods in Hull, where students became anxious whenever it rained. As we don’t know the extent to which the current pandemic will continue, we may find that students still experience anxiety even as the situation improves.

Research on the impact of natural disasters on education commonly focuses on the psychological effects felt by students and teachers. Deaths of friends or relatives from Covid-19, social isolation or insecurity, or incidents of domestic abuse or violence, which have reportedly been on the rise, may affect students’ and teachers’ mental health. This is exacerbated by students and teachers having been isolated from peers and school support services. There are particular concerns for high-risk students, such as those who lacked access to distance learning.

After Hurricane Katrina, high-risk students, particularly those from low-income households, were more likely to suffer from psychological and behavioural issues, decreased academic performance and school dropouts.

Lessons from Christchurch

The most recent natural disaster that has been well-studied is the Christchurch earthquake. Although the school closures were shorter than in the current crisis, there was still considerable disruption with, for example, half of secondary students sharing school sites. As mentioned above, aftershocks continued for years, affecting students long after the original disaster. As the effects of Covid-19 are also likely to be long-lasting, research on the earthquake may be particularly pertinent.

One of the most interesting observations was the way in which teachers had to address false rumours and pseudoscience. Uncertainty and misinformation have been features of life during Covid-19. The importance of scientific literacy in the curriculum, then, is more obvious than ever. Providing accurate information about a traumatic event was found to help reduce students’ stress and anxiety.

However, talking about traumatic issues, such as serious ill-health or death, might present additional challenges. Another significant finding was that teachers believed they would have benefited from sharing experiences with colleagues based elsewhere. This is something that many teachers, although not all, have been doing effectively during Covid-19. Despite the increased workload of teachers during the pandemic so far, it is important that we are given sufficient time to work collaboratively within the teacher community.

An overarching lesson from Christchurch was that communities would benefit from teachers being better equipped to provide emotional support and deliver responsive disaster education to children after disasters. Such professional, expert support will be crucial when students return to school. Education secretary John Swinney has promised to put counsellors in all secondary schools to support students, although it is unclear whether this goal will be achieved.

This would clearly be a positive move, but support for teachers is also important, and unions will play a crucial role here. Teachers will need to look out for each other more than ever and we should all be prepared to give colleagues, and ourselves, a break. During lockdown, the teacher community rallied together like never before, and hopefully this will continue. Simply asking colleagues how they are, and reminding them that “it’s OK not to be OK” may reduce the risk of burnout - which was another feature of the return to schooling after the New Zealand earthquake.

The need to adapt and be flexible is nothing new to teachers, but how will Covid-19 change our role? Research on supporting children after trauma or natural disasters suggests a growing role for teachers who adapt their job to address students’ wider needs. Unesco stresses the need to build social and emotional learning skills to help students to deal with stressful situations. Teachers may also need to play a greater role in providing mental health support, depending on the availability of school counsellors, who will themselves experience an increased workload.

After the Christchurch earthquake, teachers experienced role conflict and overload. Helping students to catch up with missed learning is clearly important, but we will need to balance this carefully with the role teachers will play in supporting students emotionally. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development indicates that teachers’ multiple roles need to be reflected in teacher education, and that the numerous responsibilities they have taken on recently require extra time. This is a crucial point that leaders and policymakers cannot overlook.

Existing skill sets

Of course, as teachers, we already possess many of the skills needed to support students when schools reopen. A study on the Christchurch earthquakes shows that teachers used a range of classroom responses to provide emotional support. As several teachers pointed out, they already addressed children’s emotions on a daily basis, so would continue to do their best to support students in this area. We should also consider that many children experience trauma in their daily lives, something that teachers dealt with before Covid-19.

Nevertheless, the above study shows that teachers struggled to find a balance between simultaneously trying to provide students with a sense of normality and educating them about the earthquakes and aftershocks. Most teachers engaged in informal discussions, yet there was a clear sense of hesitancy and uncertainty on how to broach the topic. Research on the effects of Covid-19 indicate that relationships between teachers and students may also have suffered from the move to distance learning. Even with students and teachers back at school, we must adapt to the “new normal” of social distancing and potentially reduced student numbers.

Past experiences indicate that positive and nurturing support from teachers can help students to mitigate adverse effects of crises. Schools may need to adapt curricula to focus more on students’ basic needs. This will require careful needs assessment and content that addresses emerging and rapidly changing issues. Classroom activities that encourage sharing experiences in a safe environment, such as circle time, may help students to deal with negative emotions.

Emotional-processing activities, such as expressive writing and art activities, were helpful after the Christchurch earthquake and may be more practical for teachers than teacher-mediated mental health interventions. In one particular example, students shared their experiences with young people in another country, and the way technology has developed in the past decade may help this. And teachers are already finding innovative new ways to support students, such as #KeepMakingArt, a global movement created by arts educators. Society will slowly recover, and teachers possess a unique set of skills that can help students return to a sense of normality, while helping them to deal with negative emotional responses in safe and appropriate ways.

Past disasters that led to prolonged school closures provide us with some idea of what may lie ahead, and what we can do. However, a word of warning: dwelling too much on what has gone before - and the lost months of schooling - rather than focusing on a return to normality, could prove detrimental. In any case, “policy borrowing” is problematic in general, so we will need to view this unique situation with great care.

There isn’t going to be a quick fix, and it is likely the resolution of Covid-19 will be as unexpected as the way it began. As teachers, we should have the confidence that we know our learners and make decisions accordingly. Leaders and policymakers will be keen to help - but they should give teachers on the chalkface the time and space they need to navigate this unprecedented situation.

Rick Grammatica is a teacher at an international school in Bangkok. Richard Holme is a lecturer in education at the University of Dundee

This article originally appeared in the 4 September 2020 issue