Primary School

Meldreth Primary School

www.meldreth.cambs.sch.uk

At the time of writing, over the May Bank Holiday weekend, more than half of the adult population in Britain has received two vaccine doses against Covid-19. People are starting to travel once more; pubs, shops and restaurants have tentatively reopened their doors and many of us are reuniting with family members not seen in well over a year. In time with an end to the long cold winter, it feels as if the world is reawakening at last. Indeed, many of the children in school were looking forward to seeing or staying with grandparents over half term; relatives that many had not seen since Christmas 2019, a huge proportion of their young lives. So what did we learn in school from living through the pandemic? It has certainly been a strange, challenging and at times isolating experience for us all. Had the virus hit us even five years ago, I think the experience would have been quite different to what we have just faced. Advances in technology enabled whole new learning experiences to open up: online lessons, Google Classroom and Zoom. These tools, which were almost unheard of eighteen months ago, became central to our lives over the last year. Exceptionally high daily attendance for online classes and truly amazing support from parents, ensured that most children stayed well on track in their core learning and continue to progress well, now that we are all back in school together. In school, between lockdowns (and still continuing now) children have adapted well to the idea of working and playing in bubbles. We have seen class

groups forging stronger relationships with one another as they are held together in smaller spaces. Play has been richer and more inclusive and children more aware of one another’s needs as we have been forced into co-existing more closely. The downside of this is that children have not been able to socialise with friends or siblings in other classes for a long time now. By virtue of bubble locations, our youngest children have never met and barely even seen the oldest children in school, who in unhindered times would be acting as playleaders and ‘reading buddies’ – thus forging social links between different age groups across the school. We certainly long for a return to those times!

We have absolutely learned how adaptable, versatile and hugely supportive our entire community is during the pandemic. Changes to the timetable, restrictions on what can and can’t be brought into school, social distancing and mask wearing around the school premises have all been followed unquestioningly as we have worked together to protect one another. Parents, who have had to be masked and socially distanced at the school gate for over fifteen months, have remained unswerving in their support throughout the pandemic. Despite their absence from the school building, we feel their support through messages, telephone meetings and consultations and the daily handover at the gate before and after school. Children of course have been keen to follow our example, ever trusting in the changes we make on their behalf. They have thoroughly enjoyed aspects of this experience; lunchtimes all spent together with teachers and TAs in the classroom, their own exclusive ‘class’ toilet room; even the daily queues for handwashing have offered the comfort of routine regularity, despite the fact that we are using

paper hand towels at an alarming rate! Above all, we have been impressed with the children’s resilience through everything: if we say ‘this is how it will be’ they fall in and comply. Attendance levels are high; all this handwashing must be keeping other bugs at bay too! After a long period of travel restrictions, we have been excited in the last fortnight to learn that we have managed to secure a single night away at the Grafham Water Activity Centre for our year six children, who had been expecting to follow a second year of restrictions on these kinds of trips. Two days and a single night of fun and adventure for our oldest children will certainly offer some reward for their patience and constancy though a difficult time. It will also offer us all some more hope that the way we love to do things in primary learning is, like the summer itself, beginning to open up once more for us all. And if indeed there are further twists and turns or even ‘roadblocks’ ahead as we journey on through the pandemic, we will be ready, together, to meet and overcome whatever we face in the future.

Andrew Jones Deputy Headteacher Meldreth Primary School

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