John Swinney, the hapless Education Secretary, sparked a storm of protest when he said education could remain part-time for an entire year.

Then, in the mother of all U-turns, he was forced to stand up in Holyrood just 10 days later and announce that schools are set to re-open full-time this August.

Mr Swinney had come under intense pressure from all corners – with even Nicola Sturgeon publicly disagreeing with him as he blundered from one day to the next.

In the Labour Party we demanded a detailed route map back to full education, and there were other influential voices calling for action - people such as former First Minister Jack McConnell who intervened to ensure Scots youngsters who have already missed out on weeks of learning don’t fall further behind.

But Mr Swinney’s climbdown was ultimately down to the reaction from parents and teachers, who argued robustly for a change in policy. They successfully campaigned for a full-time return to school to allow parents to get back to work, and to mitigate the interruption to schooling.

This is their victory and you could almost hear the sigh of relief across the country when Mr Swinney announced his U-turn.

As the father of a young boy who is due to start primary school in August, I certainly joined in.

But questions still remain.

At the time of writing, it still hasn’t been explained what social distancing will be required in the classroom or on school transport.

What protective measures, PPE, deep cleaning, and testing will be required to keep teachers and staff safe?

Mr Swinney has agreed to publish the evidence that this new plan is based on, and Scottish Labour will hold him to this commitment.

And more importantly, the Education Secretary’s words need to be backed up with action. That means providing councils with the resources they need.

I welcome the government’s additional £100 million over the next two years to tackle the impact of lockdown. But the reality is that £898.8m has been cut from councils’ non-ringfenced revenue budgets in real terms since 2013/2014 alone - the human cost of a decade of SNP cuts revealed by this crisis.

A combination of dither and delay at the start of this pandemic and the damage from a decade of underfunding has left local authorities in dire financial straits.

In North Ayrshire, we are fortunate to have one of the most progressive councils in Scotland - they have already indicated they will take on newly qualified teachers. I know the local authority will pull out all the stops to make the full-time return happen.

And for every parent in North Ayrshire, I also know that what is most important is what actually happens in August – not the politics of why the U-turn was made.

So everyone – councils, local and national politicians, ministers, trade unions and teachers – must work together, constructively, in the weeks ahead.

Nothing is more important than delivering education. But one of the abiding lessons of this pandemic must be the urgent need to properly invest in our children’s future.