Message from Miss Robinson

During the Summer Term, 2020, I proposed a club for Year 7 historians to record the momentous nature of the COVID Lockdown and thought it would perhaps last six weeks. And yet, the core members of the group (Lydia, Maud, Emily, Keira, Florence and Oscar) have barely missed a session since the end of Year 7 into the beginning of Year 10. These have been extraordinary times!

It has been my pleasure, as a teacher, to see the students grow (literally) and to discuss with them on a regular basis both the craziness and seriousness of the situation, first on Zoom and then in person. We talked about our disbelief at how long we were away from school in 2020 and then shared the joy of being back at Hymers in September, only for the lockdown to begin again in January 2021. They were disconcerting and grim days in lots of ways and we all felt better to get back to school, cue carpet picnics in B5 to celebrate! We’ve seen birthdays come and go; we’ve seen lockdown pets born or bought; we’ve discussed holidays and the horrors of phenomena like the lockdown haircut! We’ve expressed strong opinions on current affairs in the confines of B5. We’ve set up Zooms when members were isolating; we’ve known holiday plans go wrong and the heartbreak of not seeing family members for months.

We’ve marked national events like the death of the Duke of Edinburgh and his COVID funeral and we’ve kept in touch with Old Hymerians during this difficult period.

One of the most joyous moments for our club was when Florence met the Old Hymerian gentleman she had written to during lockdown in real life!

We’re including our thoughts, memories and mini projects in the time capsule and its accompanying booklet.

It is a record of the views, interests and concerns of a certain group of Hymers students in the period from assemblies ceasing to them re-starting as the illness levels dropped.

This means it covers a period of roughly two years and shows how their ideas about COVID changed over time. We are handing over our project to the Old Hymerians and are delighted to share it with the Development Office for posterity.

We are grateful to all our contributors, but especially for the help of Lucy Birch, Emily Pennack and Susie Gibson. To all the students who have engaged with the Time Capsule Club, thank you!

Finally, a huge word of thanks to my students, whose zest for the project definitely helped me through the gloom of the lockdowns. They are funny, perceptive and smart historians and it has been an absolute privilege to help them with the Time Capsule.

Helen Robinson Teacher of History