Hello there,
I'm back safely from my day at school. To clarify, for anyone who isn't English, how school is working under lockdown is that schools are closed to children BUT if their parents are keyworkers who need to be at work (doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, social care workers, police officers etc), then schools have to open for those children. Obviously, the numbers of these who are in that case and who want to take up the offer are limited. The way different schools are approaching it are to have a rota where staff are scheduled on for specific dates to come in. Depending on the number of staff in the school and the number of children are are 'booked in', determines how many staff are needed to come in. So, in my case, I was scheduled for that first Monday 23rd March to look after the keyworker children and I wasn't scheduled to be 'in' until today. I didn't know what number of children there would be or what ages, I just knew I was in with one PGCE teacher (she was a TA in our school for 10 years but she's doing the Schools Direct Teacher Training) and our sports coach. In addition, our SENCO was in the building and there was a midday (the new name for a 'dinner lady') at lunchtime and one member of office staff plus the Caretaker to close up plus 2 cleaners to clean the limited rooms that were used. CBC was ALSO scheduled for today but in his case, the parents have to email in to say if their kids need to come in and none were scheduled so he didn't actually have to go in.
It was, I admit, really tiring to get up this morning at 6.35am (especially as I went to bed around 1am) but I jolted awake, got into the shower and got dressed in my pirate-themed outfit. Once showered and ready, I went downstairs to water my seedlings and 'why-haven't-they'sprouted-yet?' pots in the utility room and filled my water bottle.
At 7.18am, I jumped on Delphi, my Brompton bike with my pannier and rucksack and zoomed down the street and rode the mile for the station. I was a little worried I might miss the train and it is half an hour between trains at the moment. Luckily, the road was fairly empty and I was able to make it to the station by 7.25am. I quickly bought my daily ticket (OUCH, it cost £19.80 return!!!!) and hotfooted it (well, panted and hauled Delphi up the stairs and across the bridge and down the stairs) as the train was pulling in as I got onto the platform.
I got on and found there was already one person in the carriage. I kept my bike up to avoid unnecessary touching of surfaces. At the next station someone got on and at each subsequent station, 2 people got on. We were all able to have one set of seats to ourselves but I definitely held my breath every time someone got on. I made sure to keep my gloves on.
At my interchange station, I got up and got off. It had arrived early so I thought I had 3 minutes to get to my other platform. Alas a couple of people were in front of me at the steps so I waited for them to go down further enough for space. Another lady was in front of me and perhaps either was unfit or had mobility issues as she traversed those steps very slowly and kept stopping. I gave her plenty of space but I could see those 3 minutes ticking away. As she was almost at the bottom, she stopped to rest then saw me edging down the stairs. She said, "Oh sorry!". I replied, "Take your time," even though I was really wanting to get to my next train. She made her way slowly along the concourse and then got to the steps to go up to the platform with 1 minute and 5 seconds before the next train was due to depart. I called the lift, as clearly I would not be making this train if I waited for her to climb the stairs. Frustratingly, as I reached the train doors to press the button, it went red which meant the doors had locked, and I'd missed it. This was really annoying!!!
With 10 minutes till the next one (hurrah for TfL rail as opposed to the other train line)- I decided to see if the bakery was open to get something for lunch. I walked down the road to it but sadly, there was a queue coming out onto the street so I trudged back to the train station.
The TfL train was on the platform when I got there so I climbed on. This one ended up being a bit more busy but we all managed to maintain some distance. At my destination station, I stood ready up the door with Delphi. Nobody else had got up or looked like it. The doors opened and a man was stood there in my way. I thought he might move but he stood there resolutely so I had no option but to make my way past him. At this moment, a girl who had been sitting shoved her way (not literally) but squeezed through the gap between me and the glass partition, off the station. Er- distancing???
I reached school at 8.25am and made my way to the music room.
It was SOOOOOO bizarre to be in there! I really was rather hungry but all my food things had been taken home for lockdown and the staffroom was locked so I decided to head across to Lidl to see if there was a chance I could get in and get some lunch for later and breakfast. Happily, there was no queue to go in (or no rottweiler guard on duty unexpectedly). I made my way into a supermarket for the first time since March the 4th (I was that busy up until lockdown and hadn't been in since. Londis doesn't count!).
And then I realised that Lidl was NOT a good place for distancing. I made sure to wait when people were in the way I needed to go but some people didn't seem to have any awareness of anyone else. I made my way around the store getting some shopping for home as well as lunch and breakfast things. At one point, I was staring at the cheeses, looking to see if there was Manchego. I looked around to check where other people were and then saw an old man ploughing towards me. I did wonder if he'd stop but he just kept going so I abandoned my cheese search, clutching at Cheddar, and made my way to the bakery section- they'd bagged up the items already into paper bags so there didn't need to be any sharing of tongs.
It was VERY hard to make my way around the store- the aisles are so tiny and it is very cramped and I was totally stuck at one point, not being able to find ANY aisle to go forwards or backwards down to get to the tills. I also discovered the Vegetarian Lasagne I'd picked up somehow inexplicably leaked all down me despite there being no obvious holes.
As I queued (observing the 2 metre tape), I sighed as I saw the man in front had the most MAMMOTH trolley load as did all those in other aisles. Annoyingly, they opened another till and asked us to come forward. The woman behind me with similarly titanic-sized haul pushed her way past me to go there. No awareness of me and my single basket. I waited and paid. I missed Lidl's cheapness!
Back in school, I made my way to the office and washed my hands and headed over to the classroom to greet my colleagues.
The day before, I'd prepared a theme for the day and a timetable of activities (and extras), which I had prepared with resources and a list of items needed, to send to my colleagues I'd decided on a Treasure Island theme after being inspired by watching the National Theatre production of it with CBC on Sunday night (he was snarky about me not 'watching it' when what I was doing was preparing my lesson activities).
My colleague had got the resources ready that were school based which we needed, though we ended up with a technical hitch that none of the computers in the rooms would work. The PE coach worked out how to attach one of the laptops to the Smartboard so we had it.
We ended up with 5 kids, all of whom were nice children I was happy to be spending the day with.
They came in and coloured some pictures and then we began the activities.
Firstly, I introduced them to Treasure Island and told them we would be pirates for the day.
We watched a short animated version of it and then I highlighted the ancient-looking treasure map.
Activity 1 was to painted out watercolour paper with cold tea and paint-brushes whilst listening to Sea shanties.
Whilst these began to dry, we made our pirate costumes. I'd come prepared with cardboard templates (cut at midnight the previous night) for Tricorn hats,skull and cross-bones parrots, hooks, eye-patches and a ruffled collar. The children were really excited at all the activities I told them they were going to do and worked quietly. They cut their hat shapes for the tricorns and they all started a different aspect of the costume whilst waiting for the different templates. This took a surprising amount of time and it was around 10.40am before they'd done these. The physical distancing was quite hard with the younger ones who kept coming right up to me when they wanted something (always on my left side, where I can't see them coming due to my vision issues in my left eye) and having to attach eye-patches and parrots with elastic (and hole punches) was very tricky with minimal contact as well as stapling hats. We chatted to the children whilst they worked and it appeared all their parents were nurses except one GP practice manager.
At 10.40, we went outside to playtime. It was deliciously sunny and we had scooters and basket balls out which was fun (for us too!). Again, the distancing did become hard as they wanted to chat to us.
At 11am, I brought them in and taught them a pirate song whilst our PE coach prepared the PE activity (I'd asked him to prepare something with our theme). When we was ready, we went out and they had to search for the hidden PE equipment 'treasure' to take to their 'boats' (hoola hoops). When they found an item of PE equipment, they had to use it correctly to take it back to their boat. Different equipment was worth different amounts of dubloons.
At 12pm, the Midday staff arrived to take them to lunch. At this point, I realised I hadn't eaten any breakfast, nor had a cup of tea!
I headed to the office to make a cup of tea (wonderful) and took it back to my room to have alongside a Goats cheese foccacia to try and do some work on my computer as I needed to use Windows Movie Maker on my PC to make some audio blog videos for my music lesson blog posts. Annoyingly, I can't get it on my current laptop as it isn't supported on more modern computer (oh yes, I have been borrowing a school laptop these past few weeks. I managed to get a lot done during my break.
At 1pm, I went back to the classroom and we got to work on our treasure maps with the now-dried tea-stained papers.. I showed them examples, talked about the map needing to have a lot of challenges for the seeker to face in their quest for treasure and we discussed how to make places sound more scary or interesting using different adjectives. This kept them occupied for a LONG time. We ended up with some great treasure maps (all adults also made them) and we aged the edges and finally took a team photograph in all our costumes with maps. The last half an hour was spent outside. I ended up being Blossom-bombed by one child (in fact, I had blossom in my hair when I got home!).
The 3 teachers who had been with the kids all commented how quickly the day had gone and how much better it was than their last days which had dragged, because it had been so structured which I was pleased about after all my preparation.
We bid goodbye to 5 happy children at 3.30pm. It had been really lovely to be able to see different people, staff members and to be in a familiar environment. I hope we are all ok in terms of infection- we did what we could but it IS hard with children, especially in that setting. I pray that all of us adults (who have been at home for 4 weeks) are still healthy after coming into contact with the kids with their possible germs and vica versa, the kids.
After the kids went, I printed and stuck photos to the scrap book display we have been completing and left a note for the next team and popped in and said Hi to my Headteacher who had come in because there were food bags to be distributed to our Free-school meals children. I then worked in my room doing more videos for the blog. The caretaker popped his head in the door to say hi. He was delighted to see me. We had a lovely chat and then he carried on with his jobs.
Just as I was about to go, I realised I'd left my coat and memory stick case in the classroom. Disaster, it was LOCKED! Luckily, the caretaker was crossing the playground and he let me in. He also said I should go and pick some chard in the conservation area so I did as well as picking a whole load of dandelion leaves and some gone-to-seed Kale. He also pulled me up a few lettuces and a cabbage that were going to go to waste (actually they had roots on so I've subsequently planted them at home to see if they will grow more!) and I took them in my bag.
As I prepared to leave, my pannier was really full and I also had a pack of 20 1.5metre garden canes I had bought and had in school since last term which I wanted to take home so I precariously cycled with them balanced atop my pannier (CBC was aghast to hear of this later).
At the station, I just missed a train so I waited 10minutes for the next one. The train was pretty much empty so I had no worries about spacing.
At my interchange station, I saw my other train had already pulled in which dismayed me - of course the pack of canes misbehaved when I really needed to try and dash to the other platform (down in the lift, along the corridor, up in the lift). Miraculously, due to Divine intervention, I am sure, there was a 'problem' with a customer on the platform so the train left late, meaning I made it!!!
The spacing was again fine although I'm not sure why, when distancing is needed, one man felt the need to walk through all the carriages to get to the other end meaning he came right past Delphi and I as I got up to leave.
At the other end, I did the precarious garden cane balancing and managed to return home with no maimed limbs or managled spokes.
CBC was super pleased to see me and said he'd felt really lonely, unstructured and ineffective without me (hurrah, I have a use!).
I went and planted the cabbage and 2 lettuces and then watered all the plants and chatted to the peas.
Finally, I made dinner of Vegetarian lasagne with the Chard, Dandelions and Kale and we ate my Lindt Easter Egg after and watched The Good Place.
I now feel utterly knackered after a full day of teaching concentration so I'm off to bed.
And that was my Lockdown day of work!
Please pray that no nefarious germs have done no evil to any of us that day!
x
P.S. If anyone wants me list of activities, let me know and I'll share them!
I'm back safely from my day at school. To clarify, for anyone who isn't English, how school is working under lockdown is that schools are closed to children BUT if their parents are keyworkers who need to be at work (doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, social care workers, police officers etc), then schools have to open for those children. Obviously, the numbers of these who are in that case and who want to take up the offer are limited. The way different schools are approaching it are to have a rota where staff are scheduled on for specific dates to come in. Depending on the number of staff in the school and the number of children are are 'booked in', determines how many staff are needed to come in. So, in my case, I was scheduled for that first Monday 23rd March to look after the keyworker children and I wasn't scheduled to be 'in' until today. I didn't know what number of children there would be or what ages, I just knew I was in with one PGCE teacher (she was a TA in our school for 10 years but she's doing the Schools Direct Teacher Training) and our sports coach. In addition, our SENCO was in the building and there was a midday (the new name for a 'dinner lady') at lunchtime and one member of office staff plus the Caretaker to close up plus 2 cleaners to clean the limited rooms that were used. CBC was ALSO scheduled for today but in his case, the parents have to email in to say if their kids need to come in and none were scheduled so he didn't actually have to go in.
It was, I admit, really tiring to get up this morning at 6.35am (especially as I went to bed around 1am) but I jolted awake, got into the shower and got dressed in my pirate-themed outfit. Once showered and ready, I went downstairs to water my seedlings and 'why-haven't-they'sprouted-yet?' pots in the utility room and filled my water bottle.
At 7.18am, I jumped on Delphi, my Brompton bike with my pannier and rucksack and zoomed down the street and rode the mile for the station. I was a little worried I might miss the train and it is half an hour between trains at the moment. Luckily, the road was fairly empty and I was able to make it to the station by 7.25am. I quickly bought my daily ticket (OUCH, it cost £19.80 return!!!!) and hotfooted it (well, panted and hauled Delphi up the stairs and across the bridge and down the stairs) as the train was pulling in as I got onto the platform.
I got on and found there was already one person in the carriage. I kept my bike up to avoid unnecessary touching of surfaces. At the next station someone got on and at each subsequent station, 2 people got on. We were all able to have one set of seats to ourselves but I definitely held my breath every time someone got on. I made sure to keep my gloves on.
At my interchange station, I got up and got off. It had arrived early so I thought I had 3 minutes to get to my other platform. Alas a couple of people were in front of me at the steps so I waited for them to go down further enough for space. Another lady was in front of me and perhaps either was unfit or had mobility issues as she traversed those steps very slowly and kept stopping. I gave her plenty of space but I could see those 3 minutes ticking away. As she was almost at the bottom, she stopped to rest then saw me edging down the stairs. She said, "Oh sorry!". I replied, "Take your time," even though I was really wanting to get to my next train. She made her way slowly along the concourse and then got to the steps to go up to the platform with 1 minute and 5 seconds before the next train was due to depart. I called the lift, as clearly I would not be making this train if I waited for her to climb the stairs. Frustratingly, as I reached the train doors to press the button, it went red which meant the doors had locked, and I'd missed it. This was really annoying!!!
With 10 minutes till the next one (hurrah for TfL rail as opposed to the other train line)- I decided to see if the bakery was open to get something for lunch. I walked down the road to it but sadly, there was a queue coming out onto the street so I trudged back to the train station.
The TfL train was on the platform when I got there so I climbed on. This one ended up being a bit more busy but we all managed to maintain some distance. At my destination station, I stood ready up the door with Delphi. Nobody else had got up or looked like it. The doors opened and a man was stood there in my way. I thought he might move but he stood there resolutely so I had no option but to make my way past him. At this moment, a girl who had been sitting shoved her way (not literally) but squeezed through the gap between me and the glass partition, off the station. Er- distancing???
I reached school at 8.25am and made my way to the music room.
It was SOOOOOO bizarre to be in there! I really was rather hungry but all my food things had been taken home for lockdown and the staffroom was locked so I decided to head across to Lidl to see if there was a chance I could get in and get some lunch for later and breakfast. Happily, there was no queue to go in (or no rottweiler guard on duty unexpectedly). I made my way into a supermarket for the first time since March the 4th (I was that busy up until lockdown and hadn't been in since. Londis doesn't count!).
And then I realised that Lidl was NOT a good place for distancing. I made sure to wait when people were in the way I needed to go but some people didn't seem to have any awareness of anyone else. I made my way around the store getting some shopping for home as well as lunch and breakfast things. At one point, I was staring at the cheeses, looking to see if there was Manchego. I looked around to check where other people were and then saw an old man ploughing towards me. I did wonder if he'd stop but he just kept going so I abandoned my cheese search, clutching at Cheddar, and made my way to the bakery section- they'd bagged up the items already into paper bags so there didn't need to be any sharing of tongs.
It was VERY hard to make my way around the store- the aisles are so tiny and it is very cramped and I was totally stuck at one point, not being able to find ANY aisle to go forwards or backwards down to get to the tills. I also discovered the Vegetarian Lasagne I'd picked up somehow inexplicably leaked all down me despite there being no obvious holes.
As I queued (observing the 2 metre tape), I sighed as I saw the man in front had the most MAMMOTH trolley load as did all those in other aisles. Annoyingly, they opened another till and asked us to come forward. The woman behind me with similarly titanic-sized haul pushed her way past me to go there. No awareness of me and my single basket. I waited and paid. I missed Lidl's cheapness!
Back in school, I made my way to the office and washed my hands and headed over to the classroom to greet my colleagues.
The day before, I'd prepared a theme for the day and a timetable of activities (and extras), which I had prepared with resources and a list of items needed, to send to my colleagues I'd decided on a Treasure Island theme after being inspired by watching the National Theatre production of it with CBC on Sunday night (he was snarky about me not 'watching it' when what I was doing was preparing my lesson activities).
My colleague had got the resources ready that were school based which we needed, though we ended up with a technical hitch that none of the computers in the rooms would work. The PE coach worked out how to attach one of the laptops to the Smartboard so we had it.
We ended up with 5 kids, all of whom were nice children I was happy to be spending the day with.
They came in and coloured some pictures and then we began the activities.
Firstly, I introduced them to Treasure Island and told them we would be pirates for the day.
We watched a short animated version of it and then I highlighted the ancient-looking treasure map.
Activity 1 was to painted out watercolour paper with cold tea and paint-brushes whilst listening to Sea shanties.
Whilst these began to dry, we made our pirate costumes. I'd come prepared with cardboard templates (cut at midnight the previous night) for Tricorn hats,skull and cross-bones parrots, hooks, eye-patches and a ruffled collar. The children were really excited at all the activities I told them they were going to do and worked quietly. They cut their hat shapes for the tricorns and they all started a different aspect of the costume whilst waiting for the different templates. This took a surprising amount of time and it was around 10.40am before they'd done these. The physical distancing was quite hard with the younger ones who kept coming right up to me when they wanted something (always on my left side, where I can't see them coming due to my vision issues in my left eye) and having to attach eye-patches and parrots with elastic (and hole punches) was very tricky with minimal contact as well as stapling hats. We chatted to the children whilst they worked and it appeared all their parents were nurses except one GP practice manager.
At 10.40, we went outside to playtime. It was deliciously sunny and we had scooters and basket balls out which was fun (for us too!). Again, the distancing did become hard as they wanted to chat to us.
At 11am, I brought them in and taught them a pirate song whilst our PE coach prepared the PE activity (I'd asked him to prepare something with our theme). When we was ready, we went out and they had to search for the hidden PE equipment 'treasure' to take to their 'boats' (hoola hoops). When they found an item of PE equipment, they had to use it correctly to take it back to their boat. Different equipment was worth different amounts of dubloons.
At 12pm, the Midday staff arrived to take them to lunch. At this point, I realised I hadn't eaten any breakfast, nor had a cup of tea!
I headed to the office to make a cup of tea (wonderful) and took it back to my room to have alongside a Goats cheese foccacia to try and do some work on my computer as I needed to use Windows Movie Maker on my PC to make some audio blog videos for my music lesson blog posts. Annoyingly, I can't get it on my current laptop as it isn't supported on more modern computer (oh yes, I have been borrowing a school laptop these past few weeks. I managed to get a lot done during my break.
At 1pm, I went back to the classroom and we got to work on our treasure maps with the now-dried tea-stained papers.. I showed them examples, talked about the map needing to have a lot of challenges for the seeker to face in their quest for treasure and we discussed how to make places sound more scary or interesting using different adjectives. This kept them occupied for a LONG time. We ended up with some great treasure maps (all adults also made them) and we aged the edges and finally took a team photograph in all our costumes with maps. The last half an hour was spent outside. I ended up being Blossom-bombed by one child (in fact, I had blossom in my hair when I got home!).
The 3 teachers who had been with the kids all commented how quickly the day had gone and how much better it was than their last days which had dragged, because it had been so structured which I was pleased about after all my preparation.
We bid goodbye to 5 happy children at 3.30pm. It had been really lovely to be able to see different people, staff members and to be in a familiar environment. I hope we are all ok in terms of infection- we did what we could but it IS hard with children, especially in that setting. I pray that all of us adults (who have been at home for 4 weeks) are still healthy after coming into contact with the kids with their possible germs and vica versa, the kids.
After the kids went, I printed and stuck photos to the scrap book display we have been completing and left a note for the next team and popped in and said Hi to my Headteacher who had come in because there were food bags to be distributed to our Free-school meals children. I then worked in my room doing more videos for the blog. The caretaker popped his head in the door to say hi. He was delighted to see me. We had a lovely chat and then he carried on with his jobs.
Just as I was about to go, I realised I'd left my coat and memory stick case in the classroom. Disaster, it was LOCKED! Luckily, the caretaker was crossing the playground and he let me in. He also said I should go and pick some chard in the conservation area so I did as well as picking a whole load of dandelion leaves and some gone-to-seed Kale. He also pulled me up a few lettuces and a cabbage that were going to go to waste (actually they had roots on so I've subsequently planted them at home to see if they will grow more!) and I took them in my bag.
As I prepared to leave, my pannier was really full and I also had a pack of 20 1.5metre garden canes I had bought and had in school since last term which I wanted to take home so I precariously cycled with them balanced atop my pannier (CBC was aghast to hear of this later).
At the station, I just missed a train so I waited 10minutes for the next one. The train was pretty much empty so I had no worries about spacing.
At my interchange station, I saw my other train had already pulled in which dismayed me - of course the pack of canes misbehaved when I really needed to try and dash to the other platform (down in the lift, along the corridor, up in the lift). Miraculously, due to Divine intervention, I am sure, there was a 'problem' with a customer on the platform so the train left late, meaning I made it!!!
The spacing was again fine although I'm not sure why, when distancing is needed, one man felt the need to walk through all the carriages to get to the other end meaning he came right past Delphi and I as I got up to leave.
At the other end, I did the precarious garden cane balancing and managed to return home with no maimed limbs or managled spokes.
CBC was super pleased to see me and said he'd felt really lonely, unstructured and ineffective without me (hurrah, I have a use!).
I went and planted the cabbage and 2 lettuces and then watered all the plants and chatted to the peas.
Finally, I made dinner of Vegetarian lasagne with the Chard, Dandelions and Kale and we ate my Lindt Easter Egg after and watched The Good Place.
I now feel utterly knackered after a full day of teaching concentration so I'm off to bed.
And that was my Lockdown day of work!
Please pray that no nefarious germs have done no evil to any of us that day!
x
P.S. If anyone wants me list of activities, let me know and I'll share them!