Week 1 - School open

It is pretty much impossible to get a group of 30, or 20, or 10 children to stay 2 metres apart. When in school they are seated a reasonable distance apart, they are reminded to wash their hands every half an hour, and we try to keep both some sort of routine and a lot of time outside upper most in what we do. 
If the children are in lockdown at home then school is their best chance of fresh air and exercise. They also stay further apart playing chase, playing cricket, riding bikes and scooters etc than they do inside having a chill out time with lego etc

Each day they start with Joe Wicks - PE teacher and exercise to get them going, then there are workbooks, plus craft activities, reading, lunch etc to fill the day.
On Friday this included some time in the Forest School area where they automatically spaced out because there were so many options of what to explore.
Some climbed a tree, some bounced from tyre to tyre, some hung from swings. Others balanced carefully on a self made beam and a big group took it in turns with a 'high jump' that they kept raising.
A few chose to sit and whittle with an adult

Lunch was a whole group affair, including the adults, and again we spaced children to be 2 metres apart. After lunch the kids had some quiet reading time in the post lunch slump. Older children read to the young ones and many re visited favourite stories as well as advancing through their current book. Then it was time for a little yoga...

In the way that the school day can gallop away at times we suddenly found ourselves in the last 90 minutes of the day (finishing at 4) and the children rallied to draw around their hands, decorate them, and help create a 'Round of Applause' for the NHS following the previous night's doorstep clapping

And suddenly the day was over

Week one finished

No one knows how many more weeks of this we will have to navigate. But whether it's 3 weeks or 3 months you have to decide how you view this situation. None of us would choose enforced isolation as a way of life - but here we are doing it, and doing it to keep people safe

The pace of life has slowed, and in some ways it is quite nice - I share breakfast with the birds each morning!

I have friends in Italy who sent the message below on Saturday Morning, they are in a worse place than us, and further down this path than us, but the need to look forward is always there - so take care of you and yours and stay safe

“We will come out with longer and whiter hair, with clean hands and houses, and old clothes. With fear and desire to be outside, with fear and desire to meet someone. We will come out of it with empty pockets and full pantries. We will be able to make bread and pizza, and not to waste the leftover food.

 We will remember that a doctor or nurse should be applauded more than a footballer. That the work of a good teacher, cannot be replaced by a screen, and that sewing masks is more important at times, than sewing high fashion.

That technology is very important, indeed vital, when used well, but it can be harmful if someone wants to use it for their own purposes. That it is not always essential to get in the car and escape who knows where.

We will come out more alone, but with the desire to be together, we will understand that life is beautiful because we live, and that we are drops of a single ocean, that only together we get out of certain situations.

That sometimes the good or the bad comes from those who least expect it, we will look in the mirror and we'll decide that maybe white hair isn't that bad.

That we like family life, that kneading bread for them makes us feel important, we will learn to listen to our breaths, coughs, and look each other in the eyes, to protect those we love and to respect some basic rules of coexistence.

Maybe it will be like this or not.

But this morning, on a spring day, I want to hope that everything is possible and that we can change for the better."