I grew up listening to war stories. Mum had just started her teenage years in 1940 and often spoke of rushing up to the roof when the Italian bombers were heard to watch them attack. She described games played down in the shelters, and recounted inspirational moments of creativity, like making shirts and shoes out of materials they chanced upon. Dad told us daring stories of young boys sneaking off to the airport to watch the excitement and forage for ammunition shells to play with.

Today I am treating the coronavirus as an invasion, an attack, a war; but I am now a lady past her prime so I will not be foolhardy or put on shows of bravado to impress. I intend to fight in a cleverer way, but fight I will with the heroic echoes of the past spurring me on.

Gingerly pick and choose from routine-friendly measures that are actually helpful to children and their bewildered families

What is the best way to defeat this enemy? Stop it from spreading. So I am a stay-at-home head of a primary school now, and perhaps you are a stay-at-home parent of a primary school child, or a stay-at-home primary school teacher, so let the link begin.

Topic 1: Routine

The child

Do not assume a child has any clue as to what is happening or that the obvious and sensible way of doing things is, well, obvious. You, dear parent, and your child are approximately 25 years apart, and believe me, it is a blessing that an eight-year-old does not reason like you. However, you must not reason like an eight-year-old either, so make sure you are conscious of the difference.

Routine is helpful for a child but do not try to explain why because your efforts will be in vain. It is better to nudge your child along in a haze of mystery and adventure rather than resort to laborious logic with a set of premises and a foolproof conclusion. The important thing is to introduce a sense of predictability and expectations. Anything more is a bonus.

The parent

Stop trying to be a superhero and accept the fact that you are only human. Whether you need to go out to work or you are trapped indoors, you are not going to manage anything brilliantly. So aim at “keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs” (courtesy of Rudyard Kipling, whose poem ‘If’ is worth revisiting in times like this) and be practical. Prioritise and do what you can manage.

Above all, this is not a time to feel guilty for not doing all the work the teacher has assigned for the day, and there is no need to apologise for it either. The teacher is there to help and support, not to bring your fragile self-esteem crashing down on you.

However, spare a thought for routine. Avoid the trap of becoming a slave to this unrelenting master and start with things you can do easily into your current (unexpectedly altered) lifestyle. Remember, this is a new scenario for everyone – the teacher included.

The teacher

You, teacher, are being asked to let go of your profession’s lifebuoys – timetables, schedules, order and discipline – and swim freestyle to an unknown destination. Teachers, in the main, do not blossom in such situations, but like the parent, dear teacher, do not make routine your idol. It is a means, not an end in itself; otherwise you can easily become entangled in your own designs.

By all means set up a routine for yourself as a means of keeping a grip on your sanity, but do not be presumptuous enough to impose a routine on your students in times like these. You can, instead, gingerly pick and choose from routine-friendly measures that are actually helpful to children and their bewildered families.

For instance, the time and way you communicate with families can be standard, regular and beautifully organised, synchronised and harmonised. That should be enough to make you feel good and give you the strength to continue to teach children you can no longer control with a snarl or a pointed finger.

Then I suggest you learn to let go. Let go of desperately needing to know whether the children have understood you down to the last comma, whether they are doing the work exactly as you think best, whether they are turning into the little Einsteins you want them to become.

Teaching in the time of COVID-19 is no longer in your control; so provide work for your students routinely, but that is as far as you can go. And above all, do not doubt that you are a great teacher even though there seems to be nothing concrete to prove it.

This is the first in a series of articles by the author to be published in the coming weeks on topics related to the theme of teaching and learning during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Mariella Vella, head, De La Salle College primary school