It is one year ago to the day since exams were cancelled in Scotland. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the mass exodus from schools, when pupils throughout the country headed home not knowing when they would be back.

Back then, the big question was “how long till things get back to normal?” Now, it’s more “just how far from the old normal will we be when things finally settle down?” Given the huge impact of Covid on education, it’s only right that this week we have a special issue marking the effects of the pandemic since March 2020.

Last year, the exams were cancelled with only a few weeks’ notice. In 2021, however, there has been plenty of time to prepare for teacher assessment, yet so much is still up in the air, including a consultation on the appeals process that doesn’t close until a week today. The irony of the Scottish Qualifications Authority repeatedly describing itself as “fleet of foot” has not gone unnoticed. And last month, of course, MSPs voted for “substantial reform” of both the SQA and Education Scotland, having deemed both national bodies not fit for purpose after weighing up their performances during Covid.

Covid: Back-to-school plans that infuriated teachers

When it comes to the Scottish government, this week has been a step too far for many school staff. In the past year staff have, time and again, gone above and beyond in ensuring some semblance of continuity in pupils’ education. They have shown extraordinary forbearance, given the constantly shifting sands of education during Covid - the gnawing uncertainty, the sudden U-turns, the media platforming of fringe groups that routinely vilify teachers - but in the run-up to this week, patience seemed to snap across the land.

Secondary school timetables had to be ripped up - with less than a fortnight’s notice - to accommodate S1-3 students for what might amount to the grand total of three days in school during the 14 days of schooling before Good Friday. And all this at a time when remote learning was going far better than during the first lockdown.

Now, in the run-up to Easter, secondary staff are betwixt and between: highly restricted in what they can offer in school and more compromised in what they can offer students when they are at home over the coming weeks.

As one seething school leader put it, in an online article for Tes Scotland at the start of the week: “I hope the Scottish government all enjoyed their weekends, while the poor teachers across Scotland were planning how to deliver lessons to 10 kids in their class whilst also engaging with 20 at home.”

Whether a tactical misstep or a cynical attempt to prioritise upbeat headlines (“Look! Everyone’s back at school - sort of” ) over the best interests of staff and pupils, it felt politically motivated to many. But then so did the response of opposition politicians who complained about the amount of time secondary students would get in school over the coming weeks, seemingly oblivious to the strict requirements of Covid safety protocols.

But this special issue of the magazine has far broader scope than the debate over the return to schools this week. We look back at the all-encompassing challenge of a year of Covid, and ahead to the many ways in which it might change education, across all sectors, age groups and corners of the curriculum.

A year ago, if you’d asked us to come up with a spread on 10 days that shook the modern education world, some entries would have stretched back years, perhaps even decades. Now, however, we have struggled to whittle such days down to 10 in the past year.

In this concertinaed Covid world of continual disruption, no one can predict with any certainty how much education will have changed post pandemic. What the past year has shown us, however, is that just about anything now seems possible.

@Henry_Hepburn

This article originally appeared in the 19 March 2021 issue under the headline “Twelve months on, schools are still being buffeted by change”