FEArlESS ForTITuDE

It was FDR who helpfully reminded us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Those are pretty useful words for boarding schools and their staff in what is continuing to be the most challenging and extraordinary year in the history of boarding.

When we all became aware of COVID19 in February, the boarding conversation soon turned to cases, public health advice, sending students home, closing schools, learning through lockdown, government rules, discounted fees, partial reopening, planning for the autumn and quarantining returning pupils. The existential fear, among all the others, was that in the worst-case scenario parents from the UK or overseas would not send their sons or daughters back to school. And yet, come September, most schools in the UK at least welcomed back more than

Robin Fletcher

Chief Executive

BSA and BSA Group 90 per cent of their boarders, with only seven per cent delaying or deferring their return.

So, having got students back, the challenges since then have continued to arrive each day, mainly concerning again cases and testing and selfisolation and local lockdowns and students staying at school in half term, or safely staying with guardians, or getting the right certificates to go back home without having to quarantine on arrival.

Make no mistake, boarding schools, like the whole world, are involved in a marathon run at a sprint. Timely it might be that 2020 is the 80th anniversary of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, but that’s little comfort if your school is facing the public health equivalent of trying to evacuate a narrow beach under enemy attack or scrambling to tackle bandits in the sky at 12 o’clock. The resilience, fortitude, imagination, tenacity and adaptability shown by BSA member schools throughout this year has been matched only by the enormous levels of genuine pastoral care shown by heroic boarding and school medical staff.

Everyone is exhausted, everyone would like everything to get back to normal as soon as possible. But that day is not here yet and we have yet to see the prime minister announce the end of the war to jubilant crowds from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Until then we must all continue to grin and bear it for however long it takes –without fear, and with whatever support BSA, Sacpa and BAISIS can provide along the way.