The NHS is on Windows 10 now.

I could understand that on critical equipment e.g. MRI scanners but not normal day to day activity - surely

It's crazy to blame excel for the problem.
Who wrote the bloody software and who doled out the contract to such an inept organisation.

There is a common theme running all through the pandemic response and clearly, those "in charge" are just not up to the job.
Our PM proclaimed IN JUNE that we had a WORLD BEATING system.

It the Tories were in charge of broadband, we'd all be on dial up and being told just how good it was

35 organisations are listed as “data processors” involved in the NHS Test and Trace system but only 4 are NHS bodies. 4 are Lighthouse Labs. A further 4 are Public Health England bodies and another is the Ministry of Defence. The remaining 22 are private companies.

The response to the pandemic is indeed under the governments "control".
They are ultimately in charge of the procurement of everything, form aprons to vaccines etc and with regard to the "test and trace", it's been oversold and under delivered since it's inception.
Now, I'm fully aware that Boris doesn't write the software for the system - just imagine if he did but, he was quick enough to take credit for it's roll out and by god, he has to carry the can when it goes wrong.
All of the glory but, none of the pain.
So quick to wave the flags and yet so damn slow, even hiding when the shmidt comes down.

My lad is a graduate software engineer and he explained exactly where the problem was with using excel for this application.
He said that they had covered this type of issue at GCSE and A level.
Now, if a lad in his early 20's knows the limitations of using excel to collate and store this type of information, just who the hell have the government used for their software development.
You will no doubt recall the earlier issues of surrounding the communication (or lack of it) between mobile devices ?

If the PM hails the system as "world beating", at the very least, you would expect it to work and work reasonably well.

I wouldn't expect Boris to be personally be placing orders for PPE or writing the software for the test and trace system.
We can take the view that they should sort out the problem with their "supplier" or, take your view that, it's not actually their fault and lets put up with more lies and failings.
The one certainty is that whoever signed off on some of this stuff is not up to the job.

Over sell, under deliver, has been the theme of the Bojo reign and you seem happy for it to continue.
Next up Brexit

When did the people running schools take an elongated break

Still churning out this old lie huh.

The interest in 4 years time will be to see just how many "friends of the party" made a bloody fortune from the pandemic.
Contracts handed out like sweets to various "companies" that had no previous experience in the field but, still got the gig, which will go some way to explaining the current shambles.

Btw, are you happy with the numbers of University students who have tested positive ??
A staged return or, maybe a delayed return would have been the sensible way to have students return to their studies.

Seems to me as soon as the schools closed down the volume of education was significantly reduced for the vast majority of students outside of public schools. That suggests a vast number of teachers had significant extra time on their hands - would you not agree?

Sounds like an enforced break. "Elongated" infers that there was a choice ?

Difficult to maintain same teaching standards obviously, but looking to maintain online teaching both individually and groups to maintain the current curriculum as much as possible is no easy task.

In addition to the above, due to most schools being of different size and layout there is/was no set structure for the return- so along with trying to maintain day to day teaching they had to plan, propose and get agreed the class teaching structure under the new Covid rules - pupils didn’t just rock up at the beginning of September, an aweful lot of planning goes into trying to make it work, and even now schools as a whole and individual lessons change daily, whole years being sent home for 14 days so different online teaching techniques required, and completely different structure for those who do attend school.

No easy task - they most certainly have not been twiddling there thumbs for the last few months, and of course dealing with the change in pupils mental attitude to boot - sure a lot of people have the same concept as you but it couldn’t be further from the truth