R E F L E C T I O N S
REFLECTIONS ON GIGGLESWICK VIRTUAL SCHOOL This year cannot pass without some reflection on the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the students and their learning. So we asked Lily Whewell to interview her family and share their thoughts about this most extraordinary of years.
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ut with the old and in with the new. A commonly used phrase by my mum when she is trying to make me clear out my room. However, over 2020 it has developed a new meaning. Out with old routines and in with new ways of living. Before the Coronavirus pandemic, we would never think twice about how lucky we are to be able to meet with friends, go to the pub for a drink after a long, wet walk and attend school in a beautiful Yorkshire Dales setting. If lockdown has brought anything to our lives, it is a time to reflect on not only our own lives, but the world which we live in. It has been a reminder that we are extremely lucky even though we don’t always think about it. Our attitudes have changed over this pivotal period in our lives. Where before hugging a friend seemed a second nature, now it feels awkward and wrong. Popping into the shops is no easy quick task, with socially distanced queues stretching the length of the building and one way shopping systems, it’s no longer a case of “I am just going to nip into the supermarket to get some tin tomatoes and pasta for tea”. Nobody said lockdown was going to be easy. However, it was the closure of schools which affected children all across the nation and the world. The country was forced to shut its doors on normal
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life, causing Giggleswick School to close on Friday 26th March 2020, and Giggleswick Virtual School to open on Monday 27th April 2020, a new chapter in our school lives, and the most unusual one yet. I never wanted school to close. The idea of not seeing my friends all the time, and staring at a screen all day certainly did not appeal to me. However, my brother Jackson who is in Year 7 and I were much better off than my youngest brother Blake who is still in primary school. Unlike us, he had no virtual lessons, just a work pack of sheets and my Mum as his new teacher. The nature of the worksheets he had been set meant Blake’s disinterest in the work did not improve matters. It was soon clear that if my mum and Blake were to work together more successfully and harmoniously they would have to adapt and change the traditional teaching methods. Their
classroom became our environment, not only learning about Maths and English but about nature and gardening which gave Blake a new interest to learn in a different way. The knowledge Blake now has due to the adapted classroom on gardening is incredible, paired with an already apparent enthusiasm for nature the things he has learnt in the past months shows that being sat at a table doing worksheets is not always the best way to learn. Upon reflection of Blake’s home schooling experience, it makes me question how the fundamental elements of conventional ways of teaching have not changed dramatically since the Victorian era, and how should there be new methods in the future? We are constantly being reminded about our changing environment and the impact humanity has on the planet, so should we be
“The country was forced to shut its doors on normal life, causing Giggleswick School to close on Friday 26th March 2020, and Giggleswick Virtual School to open on Monday 27th April 2020, a new chapter in our school lives, and the most unusual one yet.” THE
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