I’m quite nervous about school, though hiding this from Darwin. He was ill in early March, so left one day midweek, and we kept him home as the symptoms weren’t exactly certain then, and the nursery had closed down before he went back. He never got to say goodbye to his friends or teachers, it all just stopped.

We’ve had to explain very loosely why we can’t go out to the shops, to the coffee shop, the park to play in swings, see Nana, etc, that there are more germs and we need to wash our hands more, and things like that. He’s a very sensitive child and took it all in, but with a sadness.

I know he’s always been a bit nervous about starting big school. The nursery is nothing to do with the school and nowhere close, so he won’t have the familiarity of friends or location. I don’t know how on earth the new reception starters are going to do with such alien separation from their peers, having to sit and play apart, and what that’s going to do to the socialisation with the classmates they have not been given opportunity to bond with. Mostly I don’t know how they are going to settle into such a new environment in such strange times when the teachers cannot come close to comfort them. I find the whole thing weighing incredibly heavily. I think if they’d already been established at the school it might be a bit different, but being introduced to a new school environment after being away from nursery for so long (his nursery has not reopened) seems like a tough ask, and I hope not socially damaging.