This is The Guardian.

The Guardian Archive Long Read.

Hi, my name's Ida Damareem.

I'm the author of Parents are Frightened for Themselves and for Their Children,

an inspirational school in Impossible Times, which was published in 2022.

So this piece came out of the moment just after the pandemic when schools were opening

and everybody was going back to work.

There was a lot of talk about how children had been affected and it seemed like a good

time to actually talk to some children and talk to people who worked with them all the time

to see exactly what was going on.

I also had a child in primary

school and I was very aware of how uneven to non-existence some of the provision had been.

So on a basic level, you're not really allowed into schools for very good reasons. I'd spent

years dropping off and picking up and just not really knowing what happened in

between.

So partly it was just nosy curiosity.

But partly there was also a belief which I feel quite strongly that how we treat our

children says a lot about us and would say it quite a lot about the society in which we

now live.

I chose a school in Oxford. You know,

people have assumptions about Oxford. It's also dreaming, spires and wealth. But actually,

some of it is really not very well off at all. I thought a school in one of these areas would be

...