“Schools are not closed and teachers are not lounging in their gardens reading paperbacks and enjoying the sunshine,” said Ruth, who is married to Jewish Telegraph deputy editor Mike Cohen.

“Instead, we are dealing with the transformation of our schools into childcare hubs at the same time as keeping in touch with our students and communities as best we can.

“We are also attempting to make plans for a range of scenarios in an uncertain future, while trying to ignore the acres of newsprint published daily speculating on when and how schools will re-open.

“And, of course, we are also coping with our own individual family circumstances and our own panic, anxiety and apocalyptic nightmares.”

Ruth, of Bolton, says her school is supervising students on site in groups of four or five.

“It’s a mix of year groups. Different children on different days. Varying levels of understanding of social distancing,” she explained.

“We are preparing remote learning for every student in every subject every two weeks. We are uploading it onto our website as well as sending out hard copies in the post to 1,200 students, many of whom don’t have computers and/or WiFi at home. We are also providing stationery. for those who need it.”

In addition, staff at the Wythenshawe-based secondary school have been dealing with free school meals issues.

“If I were to be generous, I would say there have been ‘teething problems’ with the government voucher scheme which have led to real concerns that some children and families will struggle to have enough to eat,” Ruth said.

“For some families, we have had to provide packed lunches made on site to tide them over. We have strong links to the airport because of its proximity to the academy, and we have, this week, received a donation of 450 frozen airline meals which we can also offer to any families still unable to receive their vouchers.”

Ruth, who has a 14-year-old daughter Maisie, is also planning for the next school year, “ensuring everything can be done remotely in case there are further lockdowns”.

Staff are also phoning every child’s home once a week and making home visits if there no response after two weeks. They are also contacting vulnerable children more often, some daily, while also overseeing transition for Year Six students.

Manchester Enterprise Academy’s art and design team has also been using its 3D printers to make protective visors.

They started with 50 for school staff before making another 450 for Wythenhawe hospital, Manchester council care homes and community nursing teams.

Ruth, 51, continued: “As with almost everything in life, the lockdown has brought its positives and its negatives.

“Among the negatives, inequalities will get worse: my school serves one of the most deprived communities in the UK, with more than 60 per cent of students classified as disadvantaged using government criteria.

“Many of our children do not have access to computers at home, or to WiFi; in larger households, they may share bedrooms and thus have nowhere in the house that they can work quietly.

“It will be much harder for these young people to keep up with their studies, and it will put them at even more disadvantage compared to their peers with more affluent home lives.”

But she says one of the positives is finding new priorities.

Ruth explained: In normal times, my staff and I would have numerical performance targets for examination results, pupil attendance and behaviour incidents.

“My half-termly report to governors would provide an update on progress against these targets, together with a long list of all the things that we were doing to ensure that we met them.

“I wrote this term’s report for governors a week ago, and for the first time in my career there were no numbers to report. In all of my previous years as a head, I have known that results days could make or break my professional career and the school’s fortunes.

“This year, there will be no GCSE and A-level performance tables, and there will be no meaningful national data on attendance either.

“Instead, exam boards are seeking teachers’ professional judgement to inform grades, and suddenly GCSE results will become a reflection of a young person’s actual performance over five years of education, rather than their performance in a two-hour time frame on a particular day in May or June.

“This is unbelievably liberating for teachers on so many different levels, and I hope that maybe some of these new priorities might remain when things eventually get back to normal.”

She also joked that there were pros and cons with using the Zoom video conferencing app to keep in touch with her staff.

“It’s better than not talking to colleagues at all, but I could live without the awkwardness, the technical problems, and having to see video of myself in my full double-chinned glory,” Ruth said.

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