We break up

Time to take a look back at the 2020-21 academic year

Playbook is packing its wellies, wetsuit and lateral flow tests and heading off for a summer break. After an academic year dominated by last-minute changes of plan, we’re keeping our holiday options flexible.

After all, last year’s holiday period was hardly quiet. It featured an exam fiasco that cascaded in horrifying slow motion over days and weeks, with problems first identified after the publication of Scottish Higher results and then unfolding through downgraded A-level results, the ensuing backlash, government policy U-turns, abandoned student number caps and eventually resignations (of the Department for Education’s permanent secretary and the head of Ofqual, but not education secretary Gavin Williamson).