The interesting thing about my tweet yesterday (about being removed from school and taken to Italy in the summers as a child) is the amount of people assuming this was some upper middle class grand tour. Actually as I explained on the thread I was from a deprived home.

The importance of this, I think, is that we were economically very poor but I had a culturally and linguistically enriched childhood. Nowadays I’d be classed as vulnerable probably. I wasn’t even with my parents but with friends so they could return to England and work.

My point is that there is a great outcry about the ‘damage ‘ to children in this pandemic, yet many will not have necessarily suffered just because they are poor. There are good and creative parents in all economic spheres

Many may have benefited from parents on furlough. Many will have learnt new skills. Many will be happy they didn’t sit SATs. Now many will be happy in their new small ‘pod’ class and won’t have fallen behind at all.

The constant hand wringing about the educational gap that has supposedly widened beyond repair is an insult to the very many excellent parents out there.