imo, the Uk response has been seriously hampered by centralisation,
which is inefficient, unresponsive and v v slow.
From my view of education over 20 years and a friend with a very medical family, including her father who is a viral pathologist who also taught at Oxford and helped with some of the set up of the nightingales, it's been hampered by a mix of centralisation of response within a context where response systems are being and have been decentralised.
Friend's father is hopping mad that existing structures within the nhs, some of which he set up, have not been used re testing, tracing and communications, and between test centres and Gps. There are existing structures he's said that would have made test and trace easier.
I can see how similar structures and approaches that used to exist under Labour, have now gone under the tories and would have made a variety of issues with schools more streamlined.
This includes the fact that the primary curriculum was shifted down a year or more. For example, some key learning that was taught in y3 or y4, 10 years ago, was brought down into y2 and so on, with criticism, so I see it being reset back to what it was, with little negative impact on secondary skills.
Children with send and who are classed as vulnerable are an entirely different, emergency, issue. There are more issues imo around mental health, and secondary learning, results/ exams etc, but goal posts can be changed. You don't stop learning when you leave school.
"A happy child will learn" isn't a flippant empty woo phrase, an unhappy child will definitely not learn anything, and has been shown to be one of the many reasons why racist culture affect the achievements of black children.
The absolute biggest issue within schools is that social services referrals are on the floor. Because schools do this daily. The great lost education chant is a Trojan horse, a necessary one, to get the most vulnerable children back in.
Independent schools have always had an edge and more cash, smaller class sizes and creative teachers not always trained as such, but half the privilege there is the extended network of affluent parents as who you know counts for more after university.