Virtual School
Sisters Aoife (aged 14 – a Year 10 student) and Caoimhe (aged 13 – a Year 9 student) share their experience of what it was like to change schools in lockdown.
St John the Baptist’s College, Portadown is our local school and our little sister Laoise is starting there in September too. Mummy and daddy wanted us all in the one school, and for our old school – we were having to leave home very early each morning and not getting back until late in the afternoon.
We weren’t supposed to move until Easter week, but because of everything that was happening at the time, mummy and daddy decided to move us earlier, but then lockdown happened and we just had to move virtually!
We officially became pupils of SJBC on Monday 16 March, but schools were closed for staff training and St Patrick’s Day and then the lockdown happened.
It all happened so quickly we didn’t have much time to think about the fact that we were now pupils of a school we’d never attended as pupils! We were excited, but also nervous. It’s a big deal moving schools like this, and all our class mates have obviously had several years together to get to know each other.
Our teachers have been brilliant and provide us with lots of work and feedback. They use SeeSaw and Google Classroom with us, but we have also had a few phone calls home, especially at the start to check in on us and see if we need anything.
We haven’t been able to meet our classmates in person, but we have seen some videos of them. We know some of the pupils because they went to the same primary school as us.
We both feel part of the school because the teachers made us feel that way from the very beginning. We haven’t been treated any differently just because we’re new, and they have been really good about providing us with information. They are also saying how much they’re looking forward to meeting us in person, which is really nice.
Though we are both nervous about actually going into school because we’re still “new” and won’t know many people, plus we don’t really know what school will be like when we go back. We probably won’t get to walk around to different rooms, and will have to spend all day in one classroom because of Covid 19 restrictions, which means it will be harder to get to know the school building and to chat to lots of pupils.
