Day 5 of schools being 'closed.'

Schools officially closed their gates a week ago today. 

I have been working from home since the Tuesday before that however - due to developing Coronavirus symptoms.

So it was from my own living room that I found out schools were being closed for the unforeseeable future, and the face of education was going to be a very different one. The news that schools would be closed to the majority of students came just as our year 11's were getting their mock results, in the middle of year 10 doing their assessments, and just as our school production was about to start!

I missed our year 11’s final day at school: after two years of watching these kids grow, make progress and work so hard, I was absolutely devastated that I couldn’t be there to say goodbye and wish them luck. I will admit I have shed a fair few tears about the fact that they won’t sit their exams as usual – they have had so much taken away from them.

A lot of people might be thinking teachers are now ‘off work.’ Let me tell you something: teachers love teaching. The best part of the job is catching up with the kids, waiting for the moment when something they have been struggling with finally clicks, or that piece of work that makes you burst with pride. Not being able to go and stand in front of your class is the worst feeling – we need to see the kids, we need to support them.

Setting work for students to do at home is time consuming and difficult - how do we make sure they are all getting the support they need? How do we help them make progress if we can’t give them immediate feedback? How can we catch up with their daily lives when the relationship has been forced to be reduced to a simple backwards and forwards of work?

The internet is a wonderful thing but we are still trying to work out how to use it to its advantage. Despite common misconception, we don’t use technology every day in our classrooms. We still write on the board, we still circulate in the classroom to read the kids work as they are writing so they can get immediate feedback. We still offer a shoulder to cry on and an escape from any problems they have going on.

So yes teachers are not having to go into work every day.

But we are planning lessons which can support all abilities in one document; we are trying to contact the students who haven’t done anything at all so they don’t fall behind; and we are worrying about those kids for whom school was their safe place.

So yes we are at home and only going into work on a rota – but we miss it. We miss the students and we miss our jobs.