Pen
Steph's Story
I am a student at Pen Green and am in my final year of 3 years studying to gain my BA (Hons). I work in our local village school, we have around 25 children and I am a one to one worker with a boy who has complex needs. My life was very very busy, too busy really, I always thought there was not enough time in the day, squeezing in a degree, while being ‘mum’s taxi’, working, cooking, cleaning; if I’m not running the younger ones round I’m at my eldest daughter’s or she is here. Life requires lots of burning the candle at both ends but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The week before the schools were shut my eldest daughter was really poorly so I hadn’t been round to hers, we didn’t know if it was this COVID or not so I was staying away to ensure I did not take it into school or my home. My husband is asthmatic, me and my son have had pneumonia so we don’t want it coming in our house. It was so sad when I dropped something off to her, my grandchildren came to the door and were putting their hands up to me, I was blowing kisses to them and explaining ‘nanny can’t cuddle you’ because that was the guidance then, I kept repeating ‘nanny loves you sweethearts’. I gave them big smiles, got in my car, drove to work and burst into tears. I was so, so upset, I was beside myself, it really really upset me.
Just before lockdown my hours at school got cut from 27.5 per week to 8.5, as the parents of the boy I am a 1:1 worker for decided they were going to flexi school him, meaning they would take him out 3 days a week and send him to school for 2 mornings. I have still been paid by the County Council but my money was significantly cut, literally through the pandemic I’ve been paid for just 8 hours instead of the 27.5 I would have got if it happened 3 weeks earlier. The timing for me was really bad money wise. I literally didn’t have any money.
Someone said to me about jobs in a local supermarket, years ago I did stock control for one so I went up and got a job there. I worked 3 days a week because I did not know whether technically I could work the other 2 days that I was being paid for by the County Council. I did 6am til 2pm as a ‘Meeter and Greeter’, I was cleaning trollies, giving people hand sanitiser, explaining the rules, controlling the queues in the car park and having a chat with them all. It was alright; quite dangerous in a way, but nice to get up and have a purpose. I was a key worker, I do like interacting with people, some were really nervous to come in so it was nice to put them at ease though I did have the odd row and a couple of really nasty people. I was there for 6 weeks, even got till trained – every little girl’s dream! Originally, I was on a 12/14 week temporary contract, they took us all on thinking a lot of staff would fall sick, luckily they didn’t but that meant my contract got cut short and after 6 weeks we were told they didn’t need us.
Anyway I now have no money again, I am paying out twice as much as I am getting in, my only buffer is my student loan. I was only at home without either job for a fortnight before being called back into work. The school had initially opened for had Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 but then the Head invited in all their siblings. The boy I usually work with is not back because he is very sensory and tactile, he licks, bites and touches so they’ve got me in 2 mornings a week supporting the rest of the school. It is nice being back in and seeing the kids again. In classrooms thought it is like we have gone back 100 years. The children are in the hall as it is better ventilated, they a table each and a tray of stuff they can use with pens, pencils, workbooks and playdough. When they come in they have to socially distance, there is a teacher who is about 6ft 2” so I laugh with them and say can Mr Blah-Blah lie down in that gap, then they realise they are standing too close to each other! When they sit at their tables they are given hand sanitiser then they literally sit there and stay, they are taught there. When they have break they still need to stay apart but siblings can mix. All the stuff we teach them like sharing is now stuff they cannot do. The other day one child was playing with a tennis racket, gave it to another child and both boys had to wash their hands, then we sanitised the tennis racket and gave them both their own rackets. We told them it was good to share but that they can’t at the moment. They had both only been in school that day, it has been a huge learning curve. As an early years professional I have always valued sitting on the carpet, sharing, playing together, huddling in for a story, it’s alien now. They have just announced that from September everything can go back to normal at school, should be very interesting….
I have been helping my mum and eldest daughter out with shopping deliveries. My mum relocated here about a year ago and I used to see her most days, during lockdown she moved a bench out to the front of her house so she could watch the world go by and I would pop over with bits and bobs. I would drop them over the fence and stand on the grass verge having a chat, I’ve not hugged my mum yet. If I needed to drop something round to my daughter I would leave it at her door, I didn’t get a hug with them for a long long time.
About 11 weeks in my husband had been ill so we went and got the test. It was a great service, we drove to a car park on a Thursday, it was a 2hour round trip and by Sunday we got a text saying we were both negative, in that nano-second of time on the Sunday when I knew I wasn’t positive and we hadn’t been anywhere because we had been isolating I was really naughty. I rang my daughter up and she said ‘mum do you want a cuddle?’ I went into the garden and my granddaughter came up and wouldn’t let go of me, I sat her back to my face and she just snuggled in. My grandson came up, said Hi and went and played in the sandpit, that was nice for me.
My eldest daughter has really struggled she has mental health issues and Aspergers and is used to interacting with a good support network. Me, my other daughter and her Mother in Law were around a lot but her support dropped off the earth, she literally had no help. She has managed well, one day she phoned up and I was minutes away from dropping everything and going round, it sounded like she not able to cope but I talked through it with her and when I rang back later she was a lot better. She was meant to be getting married in April and obviously that had to be cancelled and rescheduled for February, at this stage we do not know if that will go ahead. I found her sobbing one day in her room, she was Facetiming the children and she missed them so much, she was beside herself. I told her to see if she could go in the garden and I have never seen anything like it, they cuddled on the doorstop for 15 minutes. My granddaughter was rubbing her and patting her shoulder, I was chocked watching it, we were all crying our eyes out.
Last week, as the restrictions have changed, I went over and picked my daughter and her partner up. I put car seats in my car, brought them over and took them back again. It was his 30th birthday, I made him a cake and sang to him in the garden – his parents are still isolating. We spent the whole afternoon in the garden, I made a canopy in the garden with goalposts, the kids spent whole afternoon in the garden. Now they keep asking for ‘nanny car’.
In recent weeks my younger daughter has been back at school for 2 mornings a week, she is now planning to get rid of one subject, over the lockdown she had a few video ‘face to face’ sessions but she is teaching herself a lot of it, having to rely on herself. My son has been invited to go in to touch base and say hello to everyone. September is a long way away still. He has got into a pattern now and goes out cycling for miles and miles, he does a bit of work but not as much as he should be. He is dyslexic and was sent English work that was 38 pages long, it is really uninspiring, it’s just a 6 week thing on Google Classroom. He gets instructions like do P…., it doesn’t do anything for him. I have been picking the things I think he will like, for example he had a task in history about conflicts and wars, he watches programmes about it with his dad so I tried to involve my husband and he has done really well with it. He is not going to do it all, he is way behind and I can’t pin him to the table, I don’t want to make him hate learning.
I have really appreciated not running everyone around, at the beginning of lockdown I filled my car up, that tank of petrol would normally last a week and it lasted over a month. The only thing I was doing was running myself places where I am usually taking the kids everywhere, I did not miss at all. I didn’t enjoy the two weeks I spend not working anywhere, I didn’t have a purpose and I need to have a purpose, I am not someone who can just do things for myself. Those two weeks were the worst mentally for me, it wasn’t good for me at all, at home with no purpose and the news on I was getting really anxious. In our village we had a nice time on VE day, there was a little street party, social distanced in family bubbles, everyone sat outside their house and it was really lovely. One neighbour suggested we do it once a month, everyone was saying how good it was for mental health, everyone felt better just seeing other people. I need to get back in the land of the living, it will be good to get the kids back together.
My husband has still been able to do gardening throughout, that’s how he stays sane, he has been out every day but he couldn’t go to the football. Since the Premier League has started again he has been invited back but he is not going to go, they have a couple of closed games, and he would be keeping the press in check and to help on the gates if any fans turn up. Back in March somebody spat at him and he had to go to hospital and have a test to make sure he was alright, it was quite traumatic and he had to wait quite a while for the results so he said there is no way he was going back, he can’t risk going outside to upset fans that have had a drink, they are paying well but it is not worth money. We might be poor but at least we are healthy.