RYAN LOUGHLIN, 16

Tis was supposed to be the summer where us 16-yearolds could relax due to us fnishing 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”. Tis year has been very difcult 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 bufoon not to realise that the coronavirus pandemic has afected the education of children and teens alike in the most severe ways. It has afected all ages diferently: 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. Tis 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. Tis is not acceptable! Students need to be pushed by teachers to reach their full potential. It must also be very

difcult for young children who may only just be going to school at a pivotal part of their social learning when they would usually make friends, but instead are sitting behind a computer screen not being able to make those incredibly invaluable connections. I see this as a big problem in the future, as we will have children that may come out of lockdown not knowing how to socialise: that will have dire consequences on their later life.