One week back at school- Lockdown 2

 It's Sunday night and last week was my first week 'back to school' as it were but 'back to school in Lockdown'- something I was not expecting to happen again.

I thought I'd share a few thoughts and experiences from last week.

Monday was, luckily, a holiday day so it was a 4 day week- I'd got an email on Sunday letting me know that I would be in school at some point this week but details were to follow- I found out on Monday that I would be in year 5, taking the Year worker children in year 5 and the French teacher would be in the class the other three days.  I am so grateful that they take into account my journey and try, not to make me travel too unnecessarily.  The main teachers in each year group would be taking Zoom lessons for Maths, English and one foundation subject every day and in school, those taking the Keyworker year groups would be the Higher Level teaching assistants and myself and the French teacher.

Tuesday, I got started early and started trying to plan.  It did take me a while to work out how I was going to approach this. My mind was flitting in a kind of overwhelmed panic at trying to work out how I was going to work out an online version of everything as well as trying to register with how we communicate with parents on an online platform we use and share posts on there as well as worrying about what I would do in school, how many children etc- lots of unknowns. I was also worried about taking so long over posts and then children not using them like last Lockdown but at the same time, thinking that now parents would be expecting really good lessons and resources and being more critical this time.  

I realised that in year 6, we were on the similar unit of work we had been doing in the Spring Lockdown so I could adapt one of the online lessons I had already written but even editing that and adding things in took a couple of hours which caused me to panic a bit.

I then started working on the Year 5 lesson and decided to prolong the Medieval work we had been doing by adding in an extra lesson since the first lesson on the Renaissance era is a practical one which sorely relies on having groups of children since it is all about textures like homophony and polyphony and antiphony compared to monophony and explaining that is not as good as the way I do it in class where they learn it by DOING/PLAYING it together. I decided to create a lesson on learning that popular Medieval song- Summer is acumen in.   I decided to see if I could find a good video of someone teaching you to sing it rather than me having to go through the painful process of recording those short videos I did last time and found quite a good one to use. I then worked out how to play it and typed up the tune into a sheet graphic with note names in colours broken down, with a large introductory text and then recorded myself teaching them to play the melody on the online keyboard broken down into 20second videos (the length I know Blogger allows).  I then searched for a lead to see if I could transfer my videos across but it didn't work so I then managed to discover you can bluetooth across but it is painfully slow and it took several attempts to work out HOW to bluetooth them.

Eventually, I managed to transfer them across and get the post ready but again, it had taken several hours to do so. I already realised how much I HATED being back at a computer again. Success that I managed to register for the online platform we use with parents.

It was past 4 by this point so I then tried recording some videos for the Year 3's as a longer video as an experiment with seeing if I could add them to Dojo. I made up a piece of music for them and created some practice sheets and activities leading up to them around about 8-9 sheets. I then attempted to send via Bluetooth and almost went mad as they were STILL transferring at 7.30pm and if I left my computer and went anywhere, it hung up! It was infuriating- the computer hate was strong! CBC had a manic day on Tuesday of teaching 4 lessons to his pupils via MS Teams and then frantically trying to prepare for the next day's lessons so he was also still working at 7.30pm.  I gave up around 8 and then started to make the dinner, having only uploaded the 2 lessons- 4 more year groups to go with one day to do it!

The next day, I tried to upload a video to the online platform the parents communicate with to discover MY VIDEOS WERE TOO LARGE and if they were bigger than 150KB, they were too big! I almost cried as I had 12 videos for year 3 alone and I'd have to rerecord them and BLUE TOOTH them again.

I tried bluetoothing whilst creating a Year 2 lesson post (and again searching for videos and then realising I'd just have to make some of my own as none did what I wanted) and then when my computer suddenly hibernated, realised it wasn't plugged in and it was still bluetoothing so it hung up and everything that was half transferred was lost! AGHGH!GHG!HG!H  

I then decided to see if CBC could work out how to transfer via lead- he experimented with it and then got cross because it didn't do what it should do. Later, I found a different lead that DID work and managed to show up the photos in my phone but when I tried to transfer the videos, they said they were an unrecognised file type and refused to transfer! I could have screamed! Back to bluetooth! I tried to film another video and tried the wire and that worked but NOT the 12 rerecorded videos that I really needed. I truly hate technology!

Eventually, I managed to get all the files across via bluetooth, 8pm this time, and started to try and upload them to the online platform but just as I thought it was all going to finally be up, then it seemed my internet speed was too slow and it just wouldn't complete on uploading the videos! I gave up and read up on what I would be teaching on Thursday in school and made dinner.  It was nice to be able to make dinner for poor CBC who was still locked in the study trying to grapple with references for sixth form applications as he is Head of Year 11, as well as trying to run the gauntlet of various online meetings as well as teaching lessons and try and plan for them.

I went to bed quite late and wondered how on earth I would get up at 6.35 in the morning, also realising with dismay, that I had forgotten to go to the station on Wednesday afternoon, to go and buy my train tickets so I would have to go in the morning. Sigh.

Of course, I lay wide awake when I actually went to bed.

Thursday morning and I was awake and getting up at 6.45am after ignoring the first alarm. To my confusion, CBC was out of bed and already working in the study as he was stressing to get ready for online lessons and hadn't managed to get it ready the night before. I went in the shower and then got ready to leave.

It was disgustingly dark when I left and I had to traverse dark roads to get to the station- luckily, there wasn't too much traffic (though there was a bit more than I would have thought in lockdown) so I could ride on the road to get to the ticket office easier. I made the 07.31 train and luckily had a set of seats to myself and the carriage remained fairly empty. At my interchange station, I got across to the other platform and did my creative writing for the January Challenge. At 4 stops before mine, the carriage was still fairly empty so I was annoyed to discover someone sit right opposite me (actually, still at a good distance as the seats are wide apart) when all the other seats were empty. I looked up and discovered my work colleague getting on! We had a quiet chat.

At school, I arrived just before 8.30am, I got things ready and chatted to one of the TAs who was there to work with her autistic 1:1 and we talked about the day.  The other TA arrived who was the TA in my very first class and we discovered we would be teaching English lessons we had taught together 13 years ago! I ended up with 7 children and after getting them to read several chapters of the English novel to get ready for the lesson, we zoomed into the online maths lesson with the year 5 teacher as we teach 'Maths No Problem', a scheme and I haven't taught this method before so I wanted to see how the class teacher did it.  The Head had also said that we should join in with the Zoom lessons (though I was welcome to teach it myself).

The Maths lesson went well though the starter caused some confusion though I was able to go around and help my kids with their Improper fractions multiplying.  I was very relieved, watching the Year 5 teacher teach, that I wasn't having to do online LIVE lessons- it seems quite difficult to do! At all stages, if the technology fails or if something goes wrong, or someone doesn't understand something or you can't work out to is asking you a question, you feel you are being judged by parents!

Later, the English lesson, I taught myself, ably assisted by my lovely TA- she started grinning as I began and later told me, "AAAAAAh, it was SO nice to be working with you again and seeing you teach English the way you do it!"- I must say I loved it and I was so glad I knew the book, There's a boy in the Girl's bathroom, so well after teaching it for 4 years back in my Class teacher days (though scarily, I haven't taught it for at least 10 years!)  and was really able to give my children good insights and aid their understanding.  

At lunchtime, my TA and I headed across to Lidl to get some shopping- this was my opportunity to stock up on some non-plastic wrapped veg and fruit as well as some other bits. I got bananas, satsumas, courgettes, peppers, vine tomatoes, garlic, cabbage, Spring onions as well as a bag of Kale and then I got some reduced bargains (I am willing to buy plastic-items if their use-by-date is the day I buy them as to avoid food waste) some fritatas, a sandwich, some sea bass, some fishcakes and then I found 2 blocks of extra mature cheddar which were just in black wax, no other wrapping and a ceramic large pot of Stilton- all those 3 for £3.70 in total. I also picked up a cute mini house plant in a pretty pot.

Back in class, the children finished their diaries and they immediately clocked my plant on the desk. 

"What's that?" they asked.

"HE'S called SPIKE!" I replied.

One of the boys said, "Hi Spike!" so I replied with a gruff voice, ventriloquist-style and they loved it. 

That afternoon, the year 5 teachers were leading the online children in my music lesson so I taught it live in school.  I'd brought over Glockenspiels for them and they learnt to play Summer is acumen in. I was really pleased that they all learnt to play most lines of the melody and they were really focused. It was really nice.  

In the last 45 minutes, they had to read 5 chapters of the novel ready for the next lesson and as I had a bit of a sore throat and wanted to mark their English, my TA read the chapters with the children (which she'd told me earlier, she loves doing). She was in her element and we all had a fab day. The children all said they'd had a good day and one who'd come in for the first time and hadn't wanted to, told his Mum that he was glad he'd come.

After that, I went to the music room to search for the year 4 children's composing sheets and took them to the office to scan them in so I could upload them to the online platform for the kids to access as I want their music lesson to be practising those pieces at home and improving them. I then had the arduous task of trying to pack my pannier with all my shopping. It weighed a TON!

The next day, the children all came in and, totally unprompted by me, got out their glockenspiels and practised Summer is acumen in! I was super proud! They also greeted Spike!

Maths went well and before the online lesson, I'd gone through how to order fractions and find common denominators as they'd got stuck on that starter yesterday.  In the lesson though, there was an extension activity that the kids got stuck on and I could not, for the life of me, work out how to do it! Luckily, the class teacher had said it was really tricky! I might have to zoom in on Monday to find out how to do it!

In the afternoon, the art lesson was to teach them how to mix and create different shades with paints to then paint the moon. I decided to use Powder paints as I think they are brilliant to use and I got to do a lovely demo with them all watching- they then set to work and I challenged them to beat me and create more than 15 shades. They succeeded.

Once they had all done their strips, I gathered them round and demonstrated how I would go about painting the moon and noticing all the little details

They all seemed very happy and excited and they kept saying how lucky they were that they had come in today and they could do this when the kids at home had to use pencils (if they didn't have any paints) . We listened to an hour long version of Debussy's 'Clair de la lune' (By the light of the moon!) as they painted and we had a wonderfully serene, focused atmosphere. With only 7 children in class, I was able to go around and give them feedback and point out things easily. 

Here was my demo versions I did.

One of the children told me that she knew I was teaching on Thursday and Friday and had begged to come in on Thursday ("Because you're my favourite teacher!" ) but Mum only works at the hospital on Monday and Friday so she said no.  It turned out that the hospital where Mum works is incredibly stressful in case there are any conspiracists out there and they are running out of oxygen and so many staff are absolutely knackered and exhausted from overworking that they are off sick and she found it really hard to get back to pick her up in time as things are so crazy. I knew such things were going on but it makes me angry to hear of these people who think it is all a hoax.

At the end of the day, I sent home 8 happy children and said goodbye to 2 happy TAs. 

I then attempted to upload those videos I had failed to on Wednesday night. Annoyingly, I have to upload the videos 3 times because there are 3 classes and they have separate areas,  Of course, the first class, the videos uploaded fine but the second two classes, it kept freezing after uploading parts of the videos and I was still there at 6pm with the caretaker at the door with a full on gasmark and the gas machine (they are doing extreme cleaning with a anti-virus spray) waiting for me to go! I ended up having to uploads the videos in some completely random order (and there are no captions) on the two class areas and I expect there will be some parent who complains and says it is all to confusing for the children. As a precaution,I recorded one more video explaining that there is an uploading issue and apologising for any confusion to preempt any of that nonsense.

I quickly went to my room to load up my pannier with the Christmas presents that had been left for me by children when I was isolating and to fill my bag with the out of date milk in the fridge (cartons that reception usually drink but their date was 26 Dec) and to bring home a glockenspiel, Spike and a few other things I needed- it was a precarious cycle to the station.

Still, I had had two really good days at school and the difference between my feelings of frustration over uploading lessons and the joy of face to face teaching were so stark.

I was unlucky at the station and had just missed a train. My luck continued as I waited on the freezing platform as a pigeon projectile pooed on my right boot with a big white splat. At my interchange station, I discovered my train (due in 12 minutes) was cancelled and the next one wasn't for another 12 minutes after that so it was a cold 24 minute wait!

Back home, CBC was still working hard in the study so I got on with making a dinner of fishcakes and vegetables.

After watching Neighbours, we headed off to bed.

A day out at work

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!