Writing for the paper, Sir Gavin ponders whether he should have resigned when it was announced that schools would close for a second time – as he felt “so personally upset about it”. He says his plea to put pupils first was ignored, leaving him “absolutely crushed” and “devastated”. He says that what was most upsetting was that he felt it “wasn’t done for the right reasons” – that in the first lockdown, there was no choice but to obey medical advice, but further into the pandemic, data showed low levels of pupil absence due to Covid.
