To a New Dawn: Letters of Solidarity Anthology

RYAN LOUGHLIN, 16 This was supposed to be the summer where us 16-yearolds could relax due to us finishing our GCSEs. Instead, we were met with more rules to follow and no fun in sight.

What we saw was a world that we didn’t fully understand yet we were plunged into chaos. We were at the pivot point between understanding the gravity of the situation, but not being able to do anything – because in the world’s eyes we were still “kids”. This year has been very difficult for the youth of our country; we have to worry about our families and our grandparents and anyone else in our family and, just like a prison, the only way we can talk to them is by phone.

You would have to be a blundering buffoon not to realise that the coronavirus pandemic has affected the education of children and teens alike in the most severe ways. It has affected all ages differently: students in secondary school have been lost in the jungles of responsibility and have had to take it upon themselves to learn an entire year of school curriculum – basically unassisted – because teachers were not able to see them do their work because of it all being online. This also meant that many students didn’t see the point and couldn’t see the future positives, so decided to either do the bare minimum work required… or they just gave up. This is not acceptable! Students need to be pushed by teachers to reach their full potential. It must also be very 108