North Primary School head teacher Alan Garnett recounts how the coronavirus outbreak unfolded from the school’s perspective through a diary of events. This is the first instalment as he prepared for the worst..

While coronavirus has seemingly only been a major issue for British people since the beginning of March, for North Primary School it started in January because what has become a crisis in the UK was taking hold in Italy.

North Primary School is involved in educational projects with three other schools in Europe including one in Italy and although the UK has now left the European Union the schools are keen to see the Erasmus project continue.

January: Booking the Erasmus visit to Heraklion, Crete, for March 29. Italian Erasmus project co-ordinators in lockdown. Eventual postponement at the start of March.

February: Will the Vex Nationals (robot competition finals in Shropshire) go ahead on February 29? Yes, but I told the parents in Telford we would not be going to the USA even if we won. Too much uncertainty, other countries on lockdown, we were sure to follow. USA was not taking it seriously but would have to soon. Parents and children very disappointed.

March – Wednesday 11: Reception at Town Hall where mayor Nick Cope congratulated the North School teams for their successes at the robot finals. Afterwards found it had been announced international school trips from UK cancelled. On the 12th, Vex cancelled world finals.

Schools closed across the world but not in UK.

Thursday 12: First ParentMail electronic message to parents and carers about coronavirus, the first of more than 20 in the next seven days.

Friday 13: Daily briefings for teachers started following Gov.UK guidance that individuals should commence seven day self-isolation if they had three symptoms.

Monday 16: Daily briefing to teachers at 3.45pm raised the prospect schools may be asked to remain open during the Easter break to enable health professionals and other important workers to continue to do their jobs. This stunned the teachers but they are an amazing bunch and responded positively to the idea. The Prime Minister’s briefing at 5pm changed things drastically. Instead of self-isolation for 7 days if you had three symptoms, it became 14 days family isolation if you had one of two symptoms. This was a game changer. There were two ParentMail messages sent to parents in reaction to this announcement. This would not only impact on school children and their families but also staff.

Tuesday 17: four messages with one at 8.07am (before school started) and then three in quick succession at lunchtime. The first of these said that 90 children were absent as were members of staff.

The second was headed Home Learning – with this message: Teachers have been preparing for the time when schools close. They are thinking of ways to set and share tasks.

The directive for families to self-isolate has caught us out and families who are self-isolating for 14 days are keen for us to send work home electronically. Teachers will treat this challenge as a priority.

See Monday's paper for the next instalment.