Locked down – but even busier
SO, here we go again. Lockdown. Once again most young people are learning from home. But, this time round, things are different.
Our pupils are now used to studying from home and teachers are confident at leading online lessons.
Lessons have been learnt from last year and parents tell us that their children are engaging well with the education and support provided. However, whilst everyone is more prepared this time around, the timing of this lockdown is more challenging. Last year pupils were at home towards the end of the academic year, so the bulk of academic content had already been delivered in the classroom to exam classes.
Now it’s much earlier in the year and many pupils faced a disruptive autumn term due to periods of selfisolation and illness. The highest concern is for those who had been due to take GCSE and A-level examinations this year - at the point of writing this column it’s still not clear how they will be assessed.
Uncertainty is just one challenge facing our young people, so providing emotional support is equally as important as delivering educational content right now. Daily form teacher contact (virtually) and pastoral support helps and we add to this by providing mental health advice, encouraging everyone to talk about wellbeing, building support networks and signposting to external support when needed.
Our young people are showing amazing resilience, but they are frustrated. They don’t want to be at home. They particularly miss the social interaction. School is much more than a place to do academic work. So, we’re doing what we can to encourage interaction, with live video lessons, virtual assemblies and fun activities and quizzes.
This is not an easy ride for schools or our young people, in fact we’re all working harder than ever.
Despite what you may hear in the media, schools are certainly not ‘closed’.
We have more keyworker and vulnerable children coming into school than ever before and staff have continued to work throughout the holidays.
Teachers are working longer hours than ever in front of the laptop, with most physically coming into school.
And of course, our young people are doing what they can to keep up with studies, maintain contact with friends and adapt to the changing world around them - all at the same time as facing the common challenges of growing up.
It’s devastating to not all be together in our school environment, however hopefully it won’t be for long.
Meanwhile, we’ll work together to keep everything as close to normal as possible.
School is such an important element of stability and routine for our young people and it’s important that continues now more than ever.
Positivity is always the best way forward, lockdown or no lockdown.