We asked some of our Lower School pupils to tell us what a ‘day in the life’ of quarantine and remote learning looks like for them. Read some of the entries below…
Quarantine Journal
By Isaac Macallan 8LVD
What is it like to be in quarantine? Can you go outside? Can you eat? Is your house covered in plastic with soldiers outside?
Well, allow me to answer all your burning questions in this exciting and high paced adventure through… BEING SEALED IN YOUR OWN HOME WITH NO HOPE, or a less pessimistic title… A day in the life of a pupil during quarantine.
My day consist of a few key events: Work, Food, Eye Strain and Sleep. As you can tell, very interesting: a perfect day you might say. It’s not like I can do anything else.
Thanks to our favourite people in suits down in Parliament, schools are closed, meaning we have to continue our compulsory education from the comfort of our home. Naturally this is assumed to be a challenge as we haven’t had a major viral strain before and so have never had the pleasure of experiencing working from home like our parents. Using a wide range of advanced sites and platforms, our skilled teachers can set us work and tasks to complete for them. We look at emails and ShowMyHomeWork (an online website where you can be set homework) to know what to do and when to do it. When we have completed these often complex and large tasks, we can send them to our teachers so they can mark them and judge our souls by our work. Covid-19 is really bringing people together through their laptops; how social.
But wait… there’s more! We get to do this all sitting at our desk with a curled back, staring at our screens like drones. Basically, school has been put on an operating table, they’ve cut out the worst part (work) and served it to us on a plate with lots and lots of salt. We can’t meet our friends, have fun or socialise in any way. Pretty peachy.
Of course, what human can properly function without a break? (No-one). We do get regular breaks and a lunch break which is good because it’s nice to spare our eyes from the harsh, blinding solar light from the screens of our computers. I would enjoy my lunch break but sadly all I can eat is Pot Noodle as everyone has panic-bought the good food from the store and now it’s a post-apocalyptic nightmarish, desperate struggle to find even the tiniest morsel of food. There’s plenty of Pot Noodle, but I ate the dog food before I made myself eat that.
After a long day of work, I go for a run with my Dad so I can keep healthy. It’s basically the only time I’m allowed out of the house so I make sure to enjoy it. Along the lines of keeping healthy, I’ve been getting into YouTube workouts. I stand in my room and follow an intense workout routine to stay fit and active. Sometimes for my P.E. lessons I must email myself doing it to my sports teacher, as proof I’m actually doing something.
Once I’ve finished my day, I go to bed with the sweet sound of Nick Abbot and Tom Swarbrick on LBC blasting through my radio. It’s the only real contact with the outside world I have.
So, overall, Quarantine is not good, really tiring, boring, annoying, painful and unnecessarily tedious. Sure, there are some benefits – like I won’t have to sit through any more detentions being the angel I am, but I would serve a detention every day to not be stuck at my desk for hours on end until September. I just hope that we can pull through these dark days and laugh about it with our mates on a Friday night if the good people of Britain stop going to the beach in the middle of a lockdown. I bought my sister a toilet roll for her birthday. She was so excited.
The life of a quarantined kid
By Alice Perry 7HEB
I feel like a caged cheetah, stuck in my cage, or as I like to call it, my house. My morning starts one hour later than usual as the normal walk into school of mine is no longer possible. How I long to go outside into the sun. Where I would normally be complaining about my school journey, I now miss it. My friends are only visible through my phone and I can see my screen time increasing daily.
As I was saying, I wake up to traipse downstairs to find both my parents on the phone with a glum look on their faces. Going out is no possibility, due to my Dad’s lung problems, so I am missing the outside world. After eating breakfast I make my way up to my room where I find my friends face-timing me already. The monotonous day has begun…
Starting with Geography we spend an hour on a single lesson, only to find out that we have just five minutes for a test! The day wanders on… Sun glares through my window, mocking me as I see an empty street just outside. My thoughts are clouded and my brain is going on lockdown! It won’t let any Biology go into it and I am now certain I have failed! For the first time since the last day of school, my mum says the words I have longed to hear for so long: “I am going out!”
Sprinting down the stairs I feel my heart jump and a smile fixes itself on my face. After leaving the house reality hit me: masks are on every face and we have to cross the road if anyone comes close to us. So much had changed…
Returning to the house, I wished I was anywhere but here. I remembered that one phrase that had been on loop in my head: “Be careful what you wish for.”
My Life This Week
by Shannon Gorfil 7CY
These last four days have been the longest four days of my life. The only good thing about school at home is that I get to wake up an hour later. Every day seems the same: wake up, eat breakfast, put a tracksuit on, and do work for the next eight hours of the day. I miss the noise of chattering students while I walk around the school campus, the fresh air, and always having the company of at least twenty other people, whereas here it’s only my parents. The only other communication I get in the day is through a screen (texting and face-timing with my friends).
Today in class we studied space in Physics, which is one of my favorite subjects! We also had English today, where we are reading ‘A Study in Scarlett’ by Arthur Conan Doyle. Normally I don’t like Thursdays because we must carry about three hundred books around, but because I’m at home and so are all my books, I didn’t have to today! I thought I would have more time to relax, being at home all day and all, but I actually find myself much more exhausted at the end of the day, and I think it’s because I’m not walking around in between lessons. When I do have time to relax, you can probably find me reading in my bedroom, or playing a game or talking with my parents, since they’re not out at work in the days anymore.
So even though I’m not having the worst time of my entire life being stuck at home all day, there is no doubt in my mind that if I had the choice, I would definitely go back to school!
A day in the life of a quarantined pupil: isolation day 4
By Isabelle O’Callaghan 8RDC
It is really strange being at home all the time.
Trying to convert the hustle and bustle of a school day into the living room is an isolating, solitary and pleasurably independent experience.
With no teachers, conduct cards or friends, we have to learn as we go – dealing with all the challenges of school remotely, in our pyjamas!
On a typical day:
7.30 Wake up.
7.45 Breakfast – it is quite nice to be able to see my family rather than us all rushing to work and school.
8.15 Check emails and SMHW – utterly crucial, without them, I do not know what we would do.
8.25 Start work.
9.50 Breaktime – it’s important to still try and follow your normal timetable, and to take regular breaks. People say to have a normal routine – listen to them! It is of paramount concern and will keep us on track.
12.30 I would have usually finished work by this time, so we have lunch. It’s nice to have it a bit earlier!
14.20 Stark work again….
15.30 Normally work is completed and submitted by now – Free time!
16.00 Music practice, housework – just like normally after school.
18.30 Dinner as a family. This is extremely rare on a weeknight for my family, so it is lovely to be together.
21.00 Bed.
The best things about this strange way of learning are how classes pull together to help each other with tricky problems amongst other things, the lovely emails we get from our teachers, the constant support from the whole school community, becoming closer to family and the often quirky recorded video/presentations that our teachers create.
This is quite an upsetting period for everyone in the country. My Granny is alone, and though family live close and can help with her shopping, she was meant to be coming to see us this week, and that won’t be happening. Although it is sunny outside, I think all of us feel pretty wretched about the situation.
Though this is a very stressful time for us all, it won’t go on forever and in the meantime, staying active, keeping on top of work and having a positive attitude will get us through this.
Lord help us if the internet crashes…
Day in the life of a pupil during quarantine
By Anastasia Schreiber 8WGD
Day six of quarantine. I get woken up by the sound of Dad’s voice saying “Get up! Quickly get dressed and do your schoolwork, class starts in 5 minutes!” I rub my eyes and get out of bed. I brush my teeth, comb my hair and throw a hoodie over my pyjamas.
It’s second period now. I’ve completed a series of worksheets and sent a lot of emails. My mind begins to wander: “I’m hungry.” “I wonder what’s for breakfast.” “I miss my friends.” “Why did someone have to eat a stupid bat?”
Break time, at last. I head over to the kitchen greeted by warm smiles from my parents. Then the question comes, “So when are you going to do your exercise, darling?” I sigh, as I pour some cereal and milk into a bowl. “Soon,” I reply.
Fast-forward to period six. I’ve finished my English work and know what’s next: the exercise. I walk to my room, opening YouTube to follow the workout I’ve been doing for the past six days, grab a mat and begin. It’s tough but it’s worth it.
After that, I shower and then eat lunch. I relax outside as the sun warms up my face. Weather like this hasn’t happened for a while; it seems like nature is taking a break. Afterwards, I head back inside. It’s time for the last two periods of work.
It’s 3:45. Time to close my books and laptop and relax. I head to the kitchen, grab some snacks, then head over to my bedroom and watch Netflix.
My Groundhog Day
By Izzy Perry 8LVD
So I’m in quarantine. That sounds really bad, doesn’t it? This is what I have been doing to not be bored whilst stuck at home.
Well, I obviously wake up first, don’t I? I then sneak downstairs to watch Netflix before my parents start working otherwise the WiFi will kick them off their important phone calls. When my family finally wake up, it’s decision time. Do I use my one emptier day by walking Max the dog; or do I use it to stay fit by going for a run? I can’t do both at the same time because Max would just bark or trip me up!
My phone starts to buzz with notifications from Show My Homework about work I need to complete. I had better get on with that! The one thing I do miss about school, though, is socialising with my friends and team sports.
So that is a day in my life in quarantine! Nowhere near as bad as Anne Frank had but still the days do drag on and it is my own Groundhog Day.