Beth on a Mission: October 2020

Final days of working on NEO

We (the teachers) started term a week early on the 31^st of August to get the lessons online for the students on NEO. The students started on the 7^th of September. We didn’t know how long we would be working on NEO for, as far as we knew it was probably till the half term in October. On the 11^th we heard that they were coming back. The following week was spent rearranging classrooms to allow for social distancing and preparing everything we possibly could to make sure that when the children arrived on the 21^st they would know what was happening and it wouldn’t be too much of a shock. We also still had to keep an eye on our lessons on NEO.

1st Day back. Mrs Wardle and the grade 4s and 5s.

Monday the 21^st of September came and we were as ready as we could be. All the students have to have their temperature taken before they get out of their cars and they had to hand over a health form on that first day too. It was really strange to see the children again after such a long time of them being away (they left late March) but it was also really exciting. I did feel (and still do) a little bit like a broken record, always saying “social distance” or “wear your mask” and “cover your nose”. It’s so unnatural for children to keep their distance from each other all the time, and especially tricky since some of them hadn’t seen each other in around 6 months. It was ok though, we managed.

One of my many masks.

Unlike in the UK, everyone has to wear a mask all the time here, the students and the teachers. This became especially tricky once it got to about 37 degrees C, and we teach inside metal containers. I now feel like I understand a little bit what it’s like for the chicken in the oven (except I’m being cooked alive). All jokes aside, it isn’t too bad as long as I can get a cold drink occasionally. Oh and the other good thing is that so far we haven’t had anyone pass out in school!

Before NEO I was teaching 8 hours of lessons (teaching not assisting). 7 hours of swimming lessons and 2 hours of music lessons. Now I teach 7 hours of swimming (which we had to fight for it to be allowed), 5 hours of Music and 5 hours of Art, that’s 17 hours in total! I have very little time available for assisting lessons anymore. It’s a lot more work and I do struggle with the planning sometimes but I really enjoy being able to explore new things with the students.

In Music lessons this term we have been looking at Music Genres, more specifically in this first part of the term, music genres from around the world. We looked at Jamaican Reggae, Latin music, Middle Eastern music, different styles across Africa, and then in the final week, we did Country in The USA. It was great to be able to show them that there is more to music than pop and rock. We were able to dance and sing with them too which was really fun, especially in the lesson on Country and Bluegrass music, we went out onto the sports field and taught them a line dance.

Art was more of a challenge since they aren’t allowed to share equipment, I had to come up with lessons that didn’t require a massive amount of clean up (I didn’t have time to clean up between lessons and didn’t want to ruin equipment). We looked at painting with Bubbles, this was by far my favourite! I had Watered down paint in containers and I added soap, each child had their own straw and they would make bubbles in the pots and then put their paper on top of the bubbles. The children found it fascinating and when the older children saw me setting it up for the younger ones, they begged me to let them do it too. We had a lot of fun, although it did get a little messy at times! We did many other topics and I really enjoyed being creative with them and seeing what they can create!

Swimming is much the same as what I always did, the main difference is that we have to take two busses to the big pool to distance the students. The other thing is that I have to make sure that there aren’t too many students changing at once to allow them to spread out properly. Other than that we have lots of fun and the students all really appreciate the time in the cool water.

We finished for the half term on the 23^rd of October. That’s 8 weeks straight for me with the extra week before school started because of NEO. It is safe to say that I was shattered! My workload was much more, I had 3 new people move in with me, I had to wear a mask all the time, it’s hot, etc… But I’m so glad I’m still here. When the students came back, I quickly forgot that NEO was ever a thing. Things returned to ‘normal’ (except the masks) very quickly. I’m so glad that I got to teach in person again. Especially with me preparing to leave in the early weeks of December!

Photos from some of our Art lessons.