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With our best-laid plans put on hold during the past few months, Helen Burge reflects on how to cope with the ‘new normal’
I
f you’ve ever played the card game Uno you will know that it is a game of ups and downs, with wild cards that
change the fl ow of the game and require you to adjust your strategy in a split second. This strategy may become irrelevant for a couple of rounds and then – quite by chance – emerge as the winning strategy a couple of rounds later. We played Uno on our fi rst family
ski holiday last Christmas. The holiday had required lots of planning and a considerable change of mindset: we had to adjust to be a family of four again (having sent eldest son off to uni in September), and we had to forego the usual festive food in favour of frozen homemade favourites that could be easily prepared at our rented apartment. At that time, we were blissfully unaware that we were going to be forced into another situation of unknowns three months later – just this time with no snow or stunning mountain vistas!
New rules and wild cards Our inconsequential games of Uno recently resurfaced as a strange parallel to my work – as a school operations manager – since the beginning of March, when Covid-19
turned our lives upside-down. The pace over these past few months has been intense, with new rules or wild cards being dealt to schools every day during the government’s evening briefi ngs. A signifi cant one, of course, was Wednesday 18 March, when it was announced that schools were closing. We learnt the rules of this new
game, such as who was eligible to attend the keyworker childcare provision. We learnt how the rules should be communicated, and tried to understand what the cards in our hand actually meant, and when we should use them. There was even
a completely bonkers separate game of Uno dedicated just to Free School Meals vouchers…. During this period, our colleagues
in maintained schools were also still trying to complete year end and put budgets for the new fi nancial year on their system – hats off to you guys!
#SBLTwitter There is no denying that we’ve all had to change the way we work and the way we approach challenges – thinking creatively and innovatively and turning strategy quickly into operational implementation. I’m sure I’ve gained a few more grey hairs; I know I’ve comfort eaten, and the ice cubes have been clinking in my G&T more frequently than usual.
FundEd SUMMER 2020 19
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