Pen Green Centre for children and their families

So, I was back in that school for one week before everything changed – they wanted to limit the number of people in school so students were not allowed into school anymore and I was glad they were able to find a way for me to stay involved in teaching and assessing the children. Although I didn’t return to that school I have completed my course – we had extra coursework to complete to help us evidence our abilities and meet the Teachers Standards – so I have qualified.

I was providing online lessons, providing material that parents could then teach to their children. I was part of the Year One team and we had one subject each and I mostly did Maths as that was the subject I had least experience of teaching. I was providing feedback for children, and their parents, on every subject After the changes on 1^st June I was instructed to stop online lessons and, because my background is in music, I started recording a little song on video every day and sending that in for children in the Year One ‘pods’ to sing along to.

I finished my coursework and then we had a final assessment interview, at the same time I was having interviews for jobs. I got a job and then had my final assessment interview the next day! Since then I haven’t done too much, apart from moving house! Life has continued for my partner in more-or-less the same way as before lockdown’, she is a transport manager for a luxury alcohol distribution company, and they have diversified during lockdown to also provide food and drink for NHS staff, so was she counted as a key worker. She has been going to work as normal, which has been a bit of normality. We managed to move house, but there weren’t as many houses on the market so that took a little while. I’ve been to visit my new school, and although it’s a bit unknown what that will look like in September, I know I will be job sharing two different year groups. It’s a small school so I will do two days a week in Year Five and two in Reception, and then a day for NQT and PPA.

The thing I have been longing for is to go and sit in a café with a book and just have a coffee. That’s the thing I love to do the most. We did manage to get to Skegness for an afternoon, thankfully it was pretty much deserted, but I did get to see the sea, having really missed it. Not that we go a lot, but just having the opportunity. It’s a psychological thing I think, knowing that you could if you wanted to. As we enjoy going out for meals I wanted to try a few places in Stamford. I had only lived there for two years hadn’t managed to sample all of the local hostelries and restaurants. I also didn’t get to go back to ones that I really liked for the last time. And I really missed, workwise, being around children. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed being around them until I went into my new school for the first time last week. I’m quite a stay-at-home person any way, that’s what my summer holidays usually entail, so I’ve not gone as stir crazy as I might’ve done. I am at a point now where I do miss my friends. I don’t see my parents all that often, but my Dad and his wife has been stuck in their house in Crete since February. It has been quite reassuring, as the coronavirus rate is much lower there, but now they are trying to get back it’s proving quite difficult. Hopefully the will return mid-July. My Mum lives in Gloucester and I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing her. We went up to see my partner’s family in Yorkshire and we did get to go up for a BBQ a few weeks ago and that was nice.

I have been a bit preoccupied, but it has been helpful to me as I have had all the time to do the course work, I don’t know how I would’ve managed it whilst working full time, so I was grateful for that. The teacher training year is very up and down so it has been good to have some time to consolidate and really reflect on what I’ve learned and what I believe and how I approach teaching. I sort of got back in touch with who I am. Having the headspace has been really nice. I am quite an introverted person so having a bit of time and space to myself is beneficial to me, but not too much! And where we were living, there were just three house and our neighbours said, ‘Oh we’re having a few drinks for VE Day, come and sit with us,’ so the three households just sat and brought cakes and things. We got to talk to them more than we had ever done before.

The school I was at starting praising children’s achievements on their Facebook page and it was all sorts of things: learning, that was not just academic, was being appreciated and I hope that that feeds into long term changes. Education will change as a result of all of this, I’m sure it will, and I hope part of that is to appreciate that learning comes in all different forms. It doesn’t just look like answers in a book.

I think I have been thinking more about other people’s experiences, I have found myself getting teary a lot, over small things – for happy reasons as well as sad reasons. I think that’s partly due to the teacher training course, so it’s personal, but also the situation has made me empathise more than normal. Maybe that’s other people’s experiences as well and perhaps if we could all be a bit more like that, that could be a good thing.

I appreciate how quickly my tutors responded to the situation, so that we could all pass. They were absolutely there for us. The school I was at did they did a fantastic job of providing quality learning in the circumstances. Teachers in this country have had a really hard time of it and haven’t just been sitting around on an extended summer holiday. I wish the idea that teachers have not been working hard throughout lockdown was different, but apparently teacher training applications have gone up! Perhaps they have seen a different side to it?