We're almost at the end of the school year and it has been the strangest one yet. There has been so many changes for the kids to deal with but thankfully my two have taken all the uncertainty in their stride. Ellie has a few more days at school and then it's out for summer!
Becky hasn't had much change in her college life from the summer term of last year. She has done most of her learning online and has only being going into college one day a week. I have really enjoyed those Wednesday's that I was home alone. hehehe Becky has been great learning at home, getting all of her assignments handed in well before they needed to be and got a message a couple of weeks ago saying all of her work had been marked and she's passed the first year of the Level 3 health & social care. Becky ended up being in a different class to her girlfriend which was a good thing, they would have only distracted each other from their work.
In November the girls had their first unplanned break from school. My dad caught Covid and we had to self isolate because we had been in contact with him. Thankfully we were all fine and my dad too. It was back to the home learning and then in December someone in Becky's class tested positive so she missed a day at college.
In December Ellie had been having the end of term tests and it turns out she is cleverer than the school thought she was and needed to be moved up a class into the middle set. We thought it was great but she wasn't so keen, none of her friends were in the new class. She needn't have worried because she never actually spent any time with them until the March. January and February was all home learning.
I thought the home learning last year for Ellie was hard work but it has been nothing compared to this years. The school really got their act together, we had to go to the school and pick up Ellie's exercise books and there were Zoom lessons for every lesson apart from PE, PHSE and RE. Some of the online lessons only lasted as long as the teacher needed to take the register and explain the independent work but most lessons lasted a full hour.
Ellie's new classmates have big personalities and she was quite intimidated by them in January and refused to put the camera on. Thankfully the woman we have contact with about Ellie's hearing loss was very understanding and let all the teachers know not to nag Ellie about having her camera on.
Ellie has struggled with some of the work in her new class. A lot what the class had already learned she hadn't with her moving up from the lower class. She really tried her hardest and thank goodness Becky was here to help with some of it. At one point in maths it took 5 of us to finish some work. Stu, Becky, Ellie, myself and Becky's girlfriend on video chat. lol
French was ridiculous. Ellie had done French in her old school in year 7, none in year 8 and the basics in the first half of year 9 in the lower class. There's nothing like being flung in the deep end. She had no clue what most of the lessons were about and neither did I. She tried her best but it was a chore, thankfully Google Translate helped us out. The French lessons were fun though, the kids always seemed to mess about in that lesson. I shouldn't laugh but I did. The teacher was super strict but the kids didn't care they just messed about. One lesson the teacher had made the head, deputy head and head of year 9 into the Zoom call. Kids were earning detentions for when they returned to school. lol It was the only teacher that the kids messed about for, I did start to feel sorry for her but the teacher treat the kids like 5 year olds which isn't going to work with teenagers. Respect works both ways.
Ellie's favourite part of the home learning were the lessons where she got to be creative. She made an eco house out of Lego for Science, storyboards about a poem in English and in Design and Technology she had to create a festival. She got stuck into it creating food menus, costumes, planning who would sing and building a stage. She did it all herself apart from cutting the box. Her D&T work earned her an award when she went back to school. I couldn't have been prouder.
The return to school and college in January went well for the girls. Lateral flow testing was introduced and despite my worries they soon got the hang of testing themselves with my supervision. Ellie loved school when they had to wear masks all day long because they got extra breaks after each lesson to get some fresh air and lunchtime was extended.
Late in March Ellie made her GCSE options and chose Geography, Business Studies and engineering. The school realised that the subjects were in blocks and engineering would clash with Geography so she changed to history then the history teacher decided that history was a lot of hard work and was worried Ellie wouldn't cope with it so suggested dropping business studies to do Geography and taking a different subject in the block where History was. There wasn't much choice but Ellie has decided to go with Photography. She is very excited about it now and is already asking for her own camera. I have said she can start off using the one on her mobile phone until she decides if she really likes it.
Becky finished college a few weeks ago for the year. All her work was done so the teachers didn't think there was any point in going in to college which was sensible with Covid cases rising. Ellie went back to school last week after a week of isolation because the school was full of cases of Covid. It was easier to isolate everyone instead of trying to figure out who had been in contact with who. Fingers crossed we get to the end of this week without any more isolating!
Both have my girls have done so well over the past year despite all the home learning. I am so proud of them both.
