Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the calm leadership, positivity and resilience of Plume Academy Executive Principal Carl Wakefield and the school's team of dedicated staff have shone through.

Whatever has been happening, from the darkest moments of the past year to times of achievement and celebration, Carl, tremendously well supported by his teaching and support staff colleagues, has acted fast and consistently to keep pace with an ever-changing situation, updating and reassuring parents, carers and students to help forge the way ahead.

As well as the more traditional methods of communication, Carl has and continues to be a familiar face on video for the school community with recorded messages sent and shared on Twitter, too.

The efforts of the Plume Academy team have been recognised widely in the local community. Just last week, Carl was awarded 'Educator of The Year' in the Pride of Maldon Awards 2021. Back in December, as well as being recognised in several categories of Maldon District's Recognition of Service Awards, designed to highlight the local heroes of the pandemic, he also won the 'Above and Beyond Award', the highest accolade.

Then and now, Carl has remained adamant that all members of the Plume family, from staff to parents, carers and students, should be mentioned for their part in getting through the pandemic year. In fact, his admiration for the role of the academy's parents and carers in supporting students through study at home and every other disruption to normal life that this virus has brought is clear.

"Families did incredibly well and they mustn't underestimate what they've done," Carl says.

When we meet one of the first things Carl talks about is his pride and joy at the way the academy's students have mastered their return to school life after this last, perhaps toughest of all, lockdowns.

"They have nailed it post-Easter fantastically well," he says, "They had a full three weeks back before the Easter break and we knew that achieving that would help them return to normal school life."

It's obvious to any visitor that this is so with the students all back in school uniform and back with their friends – almost as though nothing untoward ever happened.

Yet to accomplish this was no easy task. It involved the lateral flow Covid-19 testing of nearly 1200 students over nearly two weeks solidly from 5 March where over 1100 of them were mass tested in just one day. As a result of the academy doing so, all 1730 students were able to start back together on Monday 8 March.

Carl adds, "We decided let's do this and find a way to get through it in one hit so they could all come back, to get their learning back to a much needed routine."

However, politicians talking of "Government plans" to ensure that students "catch up" is not something that Mr Wakefield warms to – in fact, with his usual straight-talking honesty, he tells what he thinks of such ideas.

"The whole thing is being politicised. We had virtual learning in place from the start.

"We as a group of stakeholders - and with the support of the community – it is us who have successfully worked through this, despite what has been asked of us by central Government with their high profile U-turns and constant changes in policy."

Richard Scott, Director of Finance and Premises, tells of cupboards being emptied throughout the building in a search for any IT equipment that could swiftly be brought back into use.

He says, "We found more than 200 laptops one way and another before the Government got any to us, as that would have been too late.

"The leadership has filtered down through Carl. The Plume family runs through us all and in times of difficulty and tragedy a family pulls together and makes it work."

It would be easy as an outsider to assume that Carl's resilience means he has found the strength, somehow, to simply glide through this crisis to emerge almost unscathed at what we all hope now is the light of the other side. That thought fails to recognise a personal cost to every member of staff and to Carl that somehow now serves only to make the path forward shine more brightly.

In the reception of Plume Academy, a wooden mobile hangs to commemorate 2020, "year of the lockdown".

Mr Wakefield, with a career in education spanning nearly 30 years after training as a PE teacher at Carnegie College, Leeds, has always enjoyed a sporty life. Yet he has felt the impact of more than a few sleepless nights and the exhaustion inevitably involved in with keeping abreast of a constantly changing situation over such a long period.

"I have a fantastic team," Carl says, "but it's been a lonely job at times nonetheless.

"Still, it's been about bringing reassurance and stability, while also modelling calmness, positivity and resilience no matter what the challenge.

"I feel as though my body has suffered more wear and tear in the last 13 months than it had in the previous 48 years.

"It's the longevity of it that concerns me – that we just need to be allowed to do our jobs now and get on with the things we are best placed to understand."

Carl is also full of praise for the Essex County Council Education Team, headed by Clare Kershaw, who constantly updated school leaders on the multiple pieces of new Government guidance – more than a thousand over the course of the pandemic so far.

"They were brilliant and very supportive," he says, "because often the guidance from the Government would change multiple times in a day.

"And despite all that, we got through. We managed the results process last year, through all the uncertainty and issues. We kept the learning for our students going and we have got them to where they need to be now.

"School leaders have shown the Government that we can run our own schools without fail and with limited budgets – and in the most difficult of circumstances.

"I do feel now that there's an element of control. Please let us get on with it and stop interfering. Trust us as professionals and fund us to allow us to achieve what we know we can."